Oral Answers to Questions

WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Sony

Huw Irranca-Davies: What recent discussions he has had with the management of Sony in respect of jobs in Wales.

Peter Hain: I spoke to Sony's senior management in Bridgend last week. They assured me that they are still actively recruiting against a full order book. The plant in Bridgend has been upgraded to support digital operations, which will continue to play a key part in Sony's business worldwide.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. He will know that the commitment of Sony to my constituency over many years, in terms of both investment in the work force and investment in the wider community, has been substantial and much treasured. We are seeking to give reassurance to my constituents and those employed at the factory, and I believe that things will turn out very well for them. May I also thank my right hon. Friend for the personal interest that he has shown in this matter? That does not reflect the view of those who criticise him as a part-time Secretary of State; he has shown a full-time interest in this issue—by contrast with some Opposition Members who might have part-time contracts.

Peter Hain: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I agree that Sony is one of the jewels in the crown of the Welsh economy. It is very encouraging that it is to go from strength to strength. It is particularly encouraging that it is investing heavily in digital technology, in which it is one of the worldwide leaders. My hon. Friend can be proud of that, as Sony is based in the Bridgend area.

Mark Prisk: Despite the news from Sony, may I draw to the attention of the Secretary of State the report from the CBI in Wales, which says that the outlook for manufacturing jobs in Wales "remains bleak"? Does he agree?

Peter Hain: No, I do not, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is quoting the CBI accurately. If he looks at The Western Mail—a paper that I am sure is not on his regular reading list, since it is a Welsh paper—he will see that it reported yesterday that the manufacturing sector is growing at its fastest rate for almost four years. The truth is that employment across Wales has been rising, compared with the miserable Tory years of high unemployment. More jobs are being created in Wales now than for a generation, there are more business start-ups, and there is greater economic stability and optimism across the sector.

Ian Lucas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Sony is not the only Japanese jewel in the crown in Wales? Within the last week, Sharp Manufacturing—another Japanese company—has decided to site its European production of photovoltaic cells in Wrexham. Is not that the real picture of Wales that we need to project to the outside world? What is my right hon. Friend going to do to promote the use of photovoltaic cells by industry and in the domestic sector?

Peter Hain: I was delighted to receive a delegation, led by my hon. Friend, of Sharp's senior managers, who are investing in this exciting new plant to create one of the leading manufacturing centres of photovoltaic cells in Europe. That is a sign that more and more companies—Japanese and others—want to invest in Wales, because they know that Wales is really buzzing economically. Its economy is going from strength to strength, and it is one of the fastest-growing regional economies in Britain outside the south-east of England. That is testimony to the excellent leadership being provided by the Welsh Labour Assembly Government and by the Labour Government here at Westminster.

Waiting Times

Peter Luff: What assessment he has made of the current waiting times for NHS surgical procedures in border areas.

Don Touhig: The waiting times figures as at the end of September 2003 were published last week. Across Wales, the target that no patient should wait more than 12 months for cardiac surgery has been consistently met, and the targeted procedure of orthopaedics also shows significant improvement on the long waiting lists.

Peter Luff: On the subject of The Western Mail—a very popular newspaper on this side of the House—has the hon. Gentleman seen the report in yesterday's edition of the attack by the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Gareth Thomas) on the National Assembly, in which he accuses Ministers of putting "political correctness" ahead of patient care? Will it not be in the border areas of England and Wales that people will see the contrast between the English health service making scarcely any progress—despite massive sums of money being thrown at it—and the health service in Wales, which is actually going backwards rather than forwards? People will then realise what a cruel deception it is for Ministers to claim that they are running a national health service.

Don Touhig: Nearly 200,000 more patients were treated in Wales than were treated in the year before the last general election. The NHS has treated 643,000 in-patients and 2.8 million out-patients. Waiting times are coming down. The key engines to drive forward improvement in the health service in Wales are investment and reform. This Government are putting in the investment, and the Conservatives are opposing it; we are tackling the reform while they oppose it. At the end of the day, the people of Wales will make the right judgment. The health service in Wales is safe in Labour's hands.

Jon Owen Jones: Does it not worry the Minister that although there has been considerable investment on both sides of the border, there is not the same enthusiasm for reform on both sides? Given the present rate of progress, within a year waiting times on the English side will be three times shorter than those on the Welsh side. Does the Minister consider that acceptable?

Don Touhig: It is important to recognise, as my hon. Friend does, that the way to improve the health service in Wales is through investment and reforms. Our Assembly colleagues may be following a different path from us at Westminster in some instances, but that is perfectly valid. What is important is for the people of Wales to get a better deal from the NHS, and I believe they recognise that my Assembly colleagues' efforts are benefiting them in that regard. Working in partnership, the Government and the Assembly are delivering a first-class health service in Wales.

Elfyn Llwyd: The Minister will know of a new phenomenon in Wales—the list of people waiting to get on to NHS dentists' patient registers. May I suggest that the next time he talks to his Assembly colleagues, they discuss the possibility of introducing training grants that would enable dentists to engage trainees? Large swathes of Wales contain no NHS dentists, and many members of the profession have told me that training grants might be the solution.

Don Touhig: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. My Assembly colleagues have, in fact, introduced a series of measures to attract dentists to Wales and expand NHS dentistry throughout the country. There is a basic £40,000 grant, as well as a £20,000 grant for the establishment of new vocational training practices, and there are also incentives to encourage dental graduates to engage in vocational training. I recognise that there is a problem throughout Wales, but I believe that our Assembly colleagues are working to solve it.

Julie Morgan: Is my hon. Friend aware that the waiting time for heart surgery at Heath hospital in my constituency fell to less than eight months in September, with only six people waiting longer than six months? Will he join me in congratulating the staff on their hard work, which has produced such a big improvement?

Don Touhig: Certainly. The Assembly has targeted a number of key areas in Wales that need improvement, one of which is cardiac surgery. Before the launch of the cardiac initiative in July 2001, 100 patients were remaining on waiting lists for more than 12 months; now no patients are waiting as long. That is testimony to the investment in the Welsh health service, and to the way in which it is responding to the priorities and requirements of Government and the Assembly.

Lembit �pik: Is the Minister aware of the concern felt in the border areas, where we have not seen the impact of the investment that the Government claim to have made in the health service? Will he explain to our constituents why they must wait 15 months for hip operations simply because they are on the wrong side of the border? What plans has he to remove the differential in waiting times between England and, say, Powys?

Don Touhig: I think that there are differences within Wales. Orthopaedics has been a key area of concern to my Assembly colleagues and, I know, to my right hon. and hon. Friends. I have discussed the problem with the Assembly Minister. As I said earlier, however, what is important is our investment and reform. As a result of that, there are now 30 per cent. more whole-time equivalent hospital consultants in Wales than there were in 1997, there are 5 per cent. more qualified nurses this year than last year, and there has been a 6 per cent. increase in the number of GPs over the last decade.
	If we are to improve the quality and delivery of the health service, we must have people in place. Only by investing and reforming will we achieve thatand I am afraid the Liberal Democrats do not have much of a policy in that regard.

Alan Howarth: Has my hon. Friend noted that Gwent Healthcare NHS trust achieved significant reductions in waiting times this year for cataract, cardiac and orthopaedic surgery, thanks to tighter management and improved funding for clinical initiatives? Did he also note this morning's welcome announcement by the Assembly Health Minister of an extra 10.72 million in capital funding for additional orthopaedic capacity in south-east Wales?

Don Touhig: I have noted both, and I welcome this morning's announcement. Like my right hon. Friend, I am a Gwent MP, and I know that there has been a problem in relation to orthopaedics in south-east Wales, but the Assembly is putting its money where its mouth is and introducing reforms, and I think that after a reasonable period we shall see a reduction in waiting times. We shall all welcome that.

Nigel Evans: The Minister says that the National Assembly is following a different path, and it is, but it is a downward and slippery path. The number of people waiting for out-patient appointments in 1997 was 101,000. Today the figure is 224,000, with severe friction points on the border areas. Has the hon. Gentleman discussed with the Minister for Health and Social Services in Wales how well advanced Welsh hospitals are in getting to grips with the impact of the European working time directive as compared with hospitals across the border?

Don Touhig: I was not sure whether that was the hon. Gentleman's bid to keep his job in the shadow Cabinet, or his swansong. Time will tell. At least he has one thing in common with his new leader: they are both Welsh Tories who could not get elected in Wales.
	The investment and reform that we are putting into the health service in Wales are making a considerable impact. The routes that we are following to reform and change the health service in Wales are different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is perfectly valid to do that. I believe that our colleagues in the Assembly are making an important impact, improving the quality of the health service in Wales.
	Comparisons are bound to be made with the position in England. Such comparisons are perfectly valid and should be used as a way of jacking up and improving the quality of delivery in the health service on both sides of the border. The collaborative approach that we have with the Assembly is the right way to proceed. The hon. Gentleman may care to tell some of his colleagues in the other House, who are blocking essential reforms to the health service in England and Wales and challenging the devolution settlement, that they should come on board and start doing something to improve the health service in Wales, instead of whingeing about it.

Nigel Evans: It is not my job I fear for but the jobs of those who work in the national health service in Wales. As the Minister knows, even though the European working time directive has not yet come in, six ambulances were forced to queue outside University hospital in Cardiff because it was full. One patient had chest pains, another had head injuries. Paramedics stated that it was the worst situation they had ever experienced. Is he proud that one of Wales's greatest exports is of patients across the border into England?

Don Touhig: Those are crocodile tears for the health service. The hon. Gentleman's future leader recently called the health service a Stalinist creation. The important thing to remember is that, when the Conservative party was in government, it closed 70 hospitals.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister must give a reply and tell us about his stewardship, not about the Conservative party when it was in power.

Don Touhig: I perfectly accept the point you make, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to clarify the comparison: 70 hospitals were closed, whereas 10 new hospitals are planned under a Labour-led National Assembly. The problems with the health service in Wales will not be resolved by a 20 per cent. cut in public funding, which the Conservative party is committed to. We are making a difference to the health service in Wales, but the Conservatives have no answers to the problems that it faces.

Nigel Evans: It is not crocodile tears from me. Is it crocodile tears from the Minister's colleagues, the hon. Members for Clwyd, West (Gareth Thomas) and for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones), who both have concerns about the state of the NHS in Wales? Will the Minister now apologise to the people of Wales for bringing the health service towards breaking point? Will he apologise to the people left stranded yesterday outside that hospital and those stranded on growing waiting lists? Will he apologise to the staff of the national health service, who have to put up with those conditions, and apologise to 92-year-old Evelyn Williams who, suffering from pneumonia and Alzheimer's, waited more than 30 hours on a trolley for a bed at University hospital last week? We used to have a national health service; now we have a national scandal. It is time the Government got a grip.

Don Touhig: I am only sorry that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), the new leader of the Tory party, is not herethe hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) is certain to keep his job after that performance. The fact is that the Labour Government and the Labour Assembly are investing in the health service in Wales80 per cent. more investment than when his party was in government. The recent budget announced by the Assembly shows an 8.9 per cent. increase in health and social care spending for next year.
	Of course, there are problems with the health service. It is a vast service. Anyone who uses itI think that the hon. Gentleman has recently, as I have recentlyhas nothing but praise for those who work in it. No one believes that the health service is perfect in every way it delivers. What is important to those working in the health service and those who depend on it is that it remains free at the point of need. They know that they have a Government who believe in it, will invest in it and will improve it.

Job Losses

Angela Watkinson: How many employers in Wales are being forced to move their operations to countries such as

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Lady should make reference to Question 3.

Angela Watkinson: If he will make a statement on recent job losses in Wales.

Peter Hain: I have had a rehearsal of the question from the hon. Lady. No, because employment in Wales has risen by 68,000 in the past year.

Angela Watkinson: How many employers in Wales are being forced to move their operations to countries such as Malaysia, India and China to avoid the burden of regulation and taxation on businesses, and to avoid increases in national insurance contributions, and how many job losses have occurred in Wales since this Government came to power in 1997?

Peter Hain: The unemployment rate has nearly halved right across Wales, and employment is now at a very high level; indeed, as I said, there was a rise of 68,000 last year. We should look at the facts instead of the Tory allegations. In terms of employment, the claimant count is down to 3.4 per cent.the lowest figure since the 1970sand economic activity is up by 3 per cent. since the last general election. Wales has had more than 14 per cent. of the total number of jobs coming to the United Kingdom in the past year, compared with 12.6 per cent. last year. Wales captured 18.6 per cent. of safeguarded jobs, making it the top region in the United Kingdom. Yes, there is a churning, with jobs at the lower end of the manufacturing scale going to countries with cheaper labour costs, but we are attracting new investment and new jobs all the time.

Betty Williams: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is high time that Opposition Members of all political persuasions talked Wales up, rather than down? Is he aware that American business people told the Welsh Affairs Committee last week that, of all the regional development agencies, they enjoy the best co-operation with the Welsh Development Agency and the National Assembly for Wales? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again, I appeal for some quietness in the Chamber. Private conversations should take place elsewhere.

Peter Hain: Yes, Mr. Speaker, because my hon. Friend and other colleagues on the Labour Benches speak for Wales, but the Tories have nobody in Wales any more. That is why they are talking Wales down. In fact, Wales is doing better than for many years, and a lot better than it ever did under the Tories.

Historic Towns

Hywel Williams: What recent discussions he has held with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) the National Assembly for Wales regarding the condition of the built environment in historic towns in Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues and Assembly Secretaries on matters affecting Wales.

Hywel Williams: There is a huge and urgent need to repair buildings in my Caernarfon constituency and in Wales in general. In fact, a Welsh housing condition survey in 1998 put the bill at 1.1 billiona bill that will be subject to VAT. Will the Minister press his colleagues for repairs to be subject to the same VAT rate as that to be levied on the 1 million-odd houses that his Government intend to build in London and the south-east?

Don Touhig: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking the time to discuss this matter with me the other evening; indeed, I know from my own constituency casework the importance of the point that he makes. Arrangements with our European partners have allowed us to maintain a zero rate of VAT on a number of items, including children's clothing and footwear. On the wider issue that he raises, a review of the European Union reduced rate provisions is currently under way, and the Government are committed to negotiating the best overall deal for the United Kingdom.

Chris Bryant: Will the Minister undertake to talk to his colleagues about, and do everything that he can to protect, buildings such as the Powerhouse, in Tonypandy? It is a very fine building which we need to protect, and it was the scene of the Tonypandy riots, with which all hon. Members will doubtless be familiar. Will he also look at the report by Aberystwyth university's centre for explosion studies, which considered how Guy Fawkes would have got on today, to see whether there are buildings in Wales that we should blow up?

Don Touhig: I shall not be tempted down the road of demolishing buildings at the moment, but my hon. Friend makes an important point: Wales has a wonderful historic industrial heritage, and too often we do not do enough to protect and preserve it. Great houses and castles are being preserved across Britain. The industrial heritage of south Wales is vital in terms of knowing who we are, where we came from and where our future lies. My hon. Friend is right to make this point, and I support him.

National Assembly

George Foulkes: What recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary on Lord Richard's report on the powers of the National Assembly for Wales.

Peter Hain: On numerous occasions.

George Foulkes: Since it is the House that will have to legislate on any changes, could the Secretary of State please tell us the exact status of the commission and to whom and when it will report? Given that it affects all parts of the United Kingdom, not just Wales, will the Leader of the House tell us when we can debate the matter on the Floor of the House?

Peter Hain: The National Assembly set up the commission and it is due to report in early spring next year. Its report will go to the National Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government will consider it. No doubt representations will be made to us. If any changes are sought as a result of the Richard commission, my right hon. Friend is right that it will be for the Houseobviously in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Governmentto decide.

Michael Fabricant: Should it not also be in partnership with the people of Wales? Will the Secretary of State for Wales now give an undertaking that, if the Lord Richard report states that the National Assembly should have increased powers, the people of Wales will be consulted through a national referendum?

Peter Hain: If the Richard commission were to propose tax-varying powersas apply in Scotland, and the Scots held a referendum on that precise issueWales would have to hold a referendum. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Labour Government will not support any increases in taxes of that sort for Wales[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again, there is far too much noise in the Chamber.

Public Transport

Ann Clwyd: What recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales about the provision of public transport by bus.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend and I have regular discussions with Assembly Secretaries about issues affecting Wales. The Assembly is allocating 8.5 million to local authorities this year to help boost the number and range of subsidised bus services, and to support community transport projects. That is in addition to their hugely successful free bus-pass scheme, which has opened up local travel opportunities for the over-60s and disabled people.

Ann Clwyd: As my hon. Friend knows, there have been innumerable complaints about the unreliable and shoddy service provided by Shamrock to my constituents in the Cynon Valleyand it also applies to neighbouring constituencies. Given that the company[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is being unfair to the hon. Lady.

Ann Clwyd: Given that my constituents continually complain to meweek after week, month after monthabout Shamrock's unreliability, and that people in the local authority have also complained about the company, what can be done to revoke its licence in view of its inability to provide the service that the people of south Wales deserve?

Don Touhig: I certainly recognise the importance of reliable transport and, more particularly, a reliable bus service. If an operator is not complying with its conditions of licence, that should be reported to the traffic commissioner for investigation. Where complaints relate to a service subsidised by a local authority, the council should also be informed. I can tell my hon. Friend that our colleagues in the Assembly are funding an officer of the National Federation of Bus Users, who will be happy to pursue complaints about particular local bus services. I would commend that course of action to my hon. Friend.

Roger Williams: Without a rural bus service, the closure of small rural schools will lead to a huge increase in private car usage on the school run. In that light, will the Minister support my and my hon. Friends' campaign to keep small rural schools in Powys opennot only on account of their good educational record, but to ensure that journeys are shorter and that private car usage is not increased?

Don Touhig: School closures will be a matter for the local authority, but I am aware of an early-day motion tabled by Liberal Democrat Members which deals with that matter. Clearly, public transport is important to rural schools. I shall certainly take note of the hon. Gentleman's point and draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friends.

Economic Activity

Jackie Lawrence: What discussions he has had with National Assembly for Wales Secretaries concerning measures to increase economic activity in Wales.

Peter Hain: Regular ones. Wales saw the highest increase in the rate of economic activity of all the United Kingdom regions in the past 12 months.

Jackie Lawrence: My right hon. Friend will be aware that 600 jobs were lost in north Pembrokeshire when the former Tory Government closed down Royal Naval armaments depot Trecwn. The subsequent purchasers of the site have kept it idle for many years. The site has now been sold on to two companies with a proven record in commercial development and job creation. Will he discuss with the Assembly Secretaries ways in which those companies can be supported in recreating some of the jobs lost under the last Tory Government?

Peter Hain: I will certainly meet my hon. Friend and I will be happy to take forward that project. Throughout her constituency, more jobs have been created and employment is rising because of the excellent economic record of this Labour Government.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Linda Perham: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 5 November.

Tony Blair: Before I list my official engagements, I wish to pay tribute, on behalf of the whole House, to Corporal Ian Plank, who was killed in a coalition operation in Iraq on Friday. He was a greatly admired and widely respected member of the Royal Marines, and I know that the whole House will join me in sending our deepest sympathy and condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.
	This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Linda Perham: What are the Government doing to address the concerns of my constituents in Ilford, North about antisocial behaviour and, given the date, the misuse of fireworks in particular?

Tony Blair: The Anti-social Behaviour Bill will make a big impact, we hope, on antisocial behaviour in local communities by giving the police the powers that they need to tackle that menace. We welcome the new Fireworks Act 2003, which is on the statute book in large measure because of the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan). We announced this week that before Christmas possession of fireworks by under-18s in public places will be made illegal and possession of the largest and most powerful fireworks will be outlawed for all members of the public. Fixed-penalty notices will be introduced, with fines of up to 80, for people caught throwing fireworks in the street. In addition, we are considering several new measures in consultation with the industry and others.

Iain Duncan Smith: rose

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Iain Duncan Smith: My hon. Friends should have registered that vote last Wednesday.
	As the Prime Minister said, we learned overnight of the tragic death last week of Corporal Plank. Our thoughts are with his family, as once again we are reminded of the extraordinary sacrifices made by British servicemen and women, to whom we all owe a huge debt of gratitude.
	When I first faced the Prime Minister across the Dispatch Box we discussed the war on terror. The loss of life over the past week has brought that war into sharp focus. There are growing concerns that foreign terroristsincluding, it appears, some British citizensmay be operating in Iraq. What information does the Prime Minister have about who is arming, funding and organising those groups, and what further action is being taken to disrupt their activities in Iraq?

Tony Blair: I gather that this will be the right hon. Gentleman's last Prime Minister's questions, so perhaps before answering that question I may say that whatever our differencesand there have been a fewI wish him well in the future and so does everyone on this side of the House[Laughter.] Well, we do.
	In respect of Iraq and terrorism, I will give the right hon. Gentleman as much information as we have. There are essentially two groups of people conducting those operations in Iraq. One is made up of Saddam's supporters or former members of the regime, and the other is made up of assorted terrorist groups, some of whom have infiltrated Iraq since the coalition forces took control back in May. We are obviously doing everything that we possibly can to disrupt their activities, but the most important thing to remember is that the position is not the British and American and other coalition forces versus the Iraqi people; it is the coalition forces and the vast majority of the Iraqi people versus those groups of former supporters of Saddam and terrorists. The truth is that we are trying to make that country better day by day and their entire purpose is to stop us.

Iain Duncan Smith: I thank the Prime Minister for his kind words.
	Obviously, the objective that he has set out is to hand power back to the Iraqi people as soon as possible. I think that everyone would accept that enormous progress has been made, in difficult circumstances, towards setting up the Iraqi governing council. However, does the Prime Minister believe that it will be possible to hand over power to a civilian Iraqi Government while the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein remain unknown?

Tony Blair: We believe that that is possible. We think that the biggest inhibition will simply be the progress that we can make. It is worth pointing out that in addition to the American forces and the 10,000 British forces in Iraq, there are now 16,000 forces from other countries there. Several European Union countries are providing thousands of people who are helping with our efforts in Iraq. The main thing is to recognise that fantastic progress is being made in large parts of Iraq. For example, the coalition programme has cleared more than 14,000 km of the country's 27,000 km of canals. All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are now open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools. All 240 hospitals are open, as are more than 1,200 clinics. The distribution of medicines has risen from almost nothing to a current total of almost 12,000 tonnes.
	Six months ago, satellite dishes were illegal, access to information was strictly controlled and it was difficult for people to use the internet. I am told that today there are more than 170 newspaperswhich is progress of a sortand satellite dishes are freely available and widely used, as is the internet. The point is that there is no inhibition on the progress that we are making, in both political and economic terms, other than the small group of people to whom I have referred. As we know from our experience of terrorism, if such people are prepared to cause death and mayhem to wholly innocent people they can cause a lot of devastation and inhibit the progress that we are making. However, I think that the answer to the problem is implicit in the right hon. Gentleman's question, and I agree with himit is to carry on making the efforts to make Iraq better.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister and I have spoken on a number of occasions about the dangers of rogue states, terrorist groups and ballistic weapons coming together. I have always agreed that the war on terror would be long and difficult and that there would be no easy victories. However, I believe that enormous progress has been made. In the past two years, the Taliban have gone from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein has been removed from power in Iraq, even though we may not yet know where he is. Does the Prime Minister agree that in Afghanistan, Iraq, or wherever else we have to fight the war on terror, we must finish the job we started or the terrorists will win in the end?

Tony Blair: I agree strongly with that, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the support that he gave for the action in Afghanistan and in Iraq. People should be very clear about why terrorist groups are now pouring into Iraq. If the coalition forces, together with the United Nations and the international community, can make Iraq better and expose the propaganda about us seizing the oil or desiring to destroy the Muslim population for the lies that it is, those terrorists know that that will send a signal across the worldnot least the Arab and Muslim worldthat will be enormous, tremendous and positive in its impact. That is precisely why those people are in Iraq at the moment. They know that this battle is not only about Iraq, but about whether we can establish a situation where Iraq becomes a prosperous, democratic and stable state. If that happens, it can act as a beacon to the rest of the world.

John Denham: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the remarkable increase that has been achieved in police officer numbers, which has exceeded the initial target. However, does he share my concern that a significant part of an officer's career will be spent policing drunkenness in town and city centres on Friday and Saturday nights? As the alcohol strategy is finalised, will he look seriously at enabling local authorities and police authorities to raise a small statutory levy on licensed premises in town and city centres to pay for the costs of policing and ensure that other police officers can be out in the communities, where people want to see them?

Tony Blair: First, the whole House will recognise the concern that my right hon. Friend has raised. We have not said that we will go down the route of a levy, but I understand the argument that he makes. The Anti-social Behaviour Bill will give the police power to levy fixed-penalty notices, which is an enormous help to them. In the trial areas, it has been immensely effective in allowing them to control antisocial behaviour of the type that he describes. We will also have powers to close down premises that routinely give rise to drunken and disorderly fights outside. It is therefore important that we consider the full range of powers and make sure in particular that swift judgment can be exercised when a pub or club in the centre of town routinely causes absolute misery to the local inhabitants.

Charles Kennedy: May I also express my best personal wishes to the leader of the Conservative party? I want to raise an issue on which he and I share considerable common interests, if not common instincts: the Government's European policy. Yesterday, the Chancellor remarked that some of the measures in the proposed European Union constitution
	would lead to tax harmonisation and a federal state in Europe.
	Does the Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor?

Tony Blair: It is precisely for that reason that we are making it clear that there cannot be any tax harmonisation or abolition of the unanimity rule on tax. I said on Monday in my joint article in the Financial Times with the Estonian Prime Minister[Laughter.] It is an important new alliance for us. I said:
	Making everybody follow the same tax rules would quickly diminish Europe's competitiveness by killing jobs and stifling growth.
	I hope that what the right hon. Gentleman's words indicate is that he is on the same side as me in that particular regard.

Charles Kennedy: Yes indeed, but the Foreign Secretary keeps describing the proposed constitutionhe has done so repeatedly in the House on many occasionsas a tidying-up exercise. Yesterday, however, the Chancellor warned that it could lead to fiscal federalism. With that difference of emphasis between the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor, with whom does the Prime Minister agree?

Tony Blair: Of course the European constitution is important. It is a very important document. The issue, however, is whether it alters fundamentally the relationship between the member state and the European Union. It is precisely because we are insisting that all the attributes of the nation state remain that we believe that we will get the right outcome for this country in respect of the negotiations now taking place in the intergovernmental conference. It is not merely us who think that. The House of Lords European Union Committee agreed with our view that
	there is considerable reassurance in the draft Treaty for those who fear that the EU is becoming too like a State
	and repeated its judgment of May this year that
	it is clear that the balance of power is going to shift from the Commission to the Member States
	[Interruption]. The shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), is shouting out that he disagrees, but his position is well known: he wants Britain out of the European Union. The real issue is between those of us who believe that it is important to get the right result from this conference but that we should have Britain in Europe, and the significant part of the Conservative party who want Britain out of Europe.

Andrew Miller: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will congratulate Cheshire police on their improved crime figures. Sadly, however, their hard work was damaged by the recent appalling actions at a training centre in Cheshire by racist police officers. Will he congratulate the chief constable, Peter Fahy, on the robust actions that he has taken and the letters that he has published in regional and local press, and assure citizens in this country, wherever they come from, that the racist elements in the police force will be rooted out once and for all?

Tony Blair: I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the chief constable on his remarks. There are now more police officers in the Cheshire police than ever before, and I congratulate them on the work that they are doing. It is important that at the self-same time as we join the chief constable in condemning absolutely and unequivocally the actions of the small minority who engage in racist or intolerant behaviour, we recognise that the vast majority of our police officers up and down this country do a fine job on behalf of all the citizens in their local communities.

Ann Winterton: Is the Prime Minister surprised by the fact that the campaign for regional government, which was launched earlier this week by the Deputy Prime Minister, has been met by overwhelming opposition in the north-west, and by cross-party opposition too? Taxpayers know that they will have to bear increased costs with no increased powers or resources whatever, in addition to diminished democracy.

Tony Blair: The very simple answer to the hon. Lady is that there will be a chance for people in the north-west to express their views. Then, we will see what they really think and whether they believe regional government makes the north-west more accountable for the decisions that are taken there. That is why it is fair to do that.

Ian Lucas: In the days leading up to Remembrance Sunday, does my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time to reaffirm our commitment to the generation who have given us so much? My constituent, Mr. Ken Mack, has collected a petition, with more than 11,000 signatures already, calling for greater security for elderly people in nursing homes and residential homes. Will the Prime Minister please reaffirm his commitment to that generation and ensure that sufficient resources are in place to give them the peace of mind that they deserve?

Tony Blair: Of course, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. He will know that care homes in Wales specifically are a matter for the Welsh Assembly, but I point out to him that in the past few years since this Government have been in power, we have increased funding for personal social services in Wales by something like 33 per cent. There are still, of course, pressures on social services and care homes, but it is precisely for that reason that we gave such a large amount of additional investment in the last spending round. Incidentally, all that investment was opposed by the Conservative party.

Iain Duncan Smith: I have asked the Prime Minister this question 18 times, and a fat lot of good it has done me over the past two yearsbut I am going to give it one more try. Why does the Prime Minister persist in denying the British people a chance to vote in a referendum on the European constitution?

Tony Blair: I am afraid that the 19th time of asking will not do the right hon. Gentleman much good either. I have to repeat what I have said before. In my view, because it does not involve a fundamental change between the member states and the European Union, I do not believe that we should have a referendum on this issue. I also believe, as I think most people recognise, that the real reason the Conservatives want a referendum is to campaign for a no vote as the first step to getting Britain out of Europe.

Iain Duncan Smith: This week, the Deputy Prime Minister announced three more referendums on regional government. That takes the total of referendums under this Government to 37 since 1997. Is the Prime Minister really telling all of us that an elected assembly for Hull or an elected monkey for Hartlepool are more important than an elected President for Europe?

Tony Blair: Regional government or, indeed, the mayor alters fundamentally the basis on which people are governed locally. However, I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman at least is entitled to ask a question about a referendum because he wanted a referendum on the Maastricht treaty[Interruption.] Yes, he did, but some other people sitting quite close to him did not.

Iain Duncan Smith: And some other people sitting not too far away from the Prime Minister actually did, so he wants to be very careful about that. [Interruption.] Steady, Jack! Everyone except the Prime Minister admits openly that this constitution represents a fundamental change to the way this country is going to be governed. Even his Chancellor, writing in The Daily Telegraph of all papers, warns the Prime Minister about a drift to a federal European state. I must say to the Prime Minister that, just between the two of us, I have a sixth sense these days about a leadership bid, so he should watch very carefully.
	The Prime Minister still persists in saying that the constitution does not change anything; it is just a tidying-up exercise. By common accord, for the last time, that is the reason why no one believes a word that he ever says any more.

Tony Blair: If the right hon. Gentleman is interested in the answer, I shall give it to him. Of course it is true that if we were to go down the route of tax harmonisation and if, for example, tax rates were to be set by Brussels and defence was to be run by Brussels, that would be a different matterit would be a fundamental change. However, that is not what the draft treaty says and it is certainly not what the outcome of the conference will be.
	The right hon. Gentleman says that no one other than myself believes that the issue will not fundamentally change the nature of the relationship, but I go back to what I said a moment or two ago. The House of Lords European Union Committee, which has Conservative as well as Labour members, said:
	it is clear that the balance of power is going to shift from the Commission to the Member States.
	The whole basis on which he posits the case for a referendum is simply false. Let us wait and see what we get out of the intergovernmental conference, but if we doas I believe that we willprotect our tax, defence and foreign policies, there will be no case for a referendum other than the true case put forward by the Conservative party, which, as I repeat for possibly more than the 19th time, is to get Britain out of Europe.

Graham Allen: On Sunday, there will be an especially proud group of men and women marching down Whitehall past the Cenotaph: the Suez veterans who will be able to wear their medals for the first time. I thank the Prime Minister for his personal intervention to enable the Suez veterans to have those medals. As he sees them walk by on Sunday, will he reflect on the very few remaining groups of people, such as those involved in the Arctic convoy and the Enigma project, who are still awaiting due recognition? Will he consider giving them some good news over the next year, just as he has thankfully given good news to the Suez veterans?

Tony Blair: I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to all people who served, and gave their lives in many cases, in the first and second world wars so that this country could remain free and democratic. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude. We keep carefully under review the medals for various groups of veterans and I shall certainly pay attention to what he says.

Richard Ottaway: Does the Prime Minister agree that people might have more trust in his Government if his fellow MPs practised what they preached? If he lived in Hackney, would he send his children to the local schools?

Tony Blair: First, it is for individual people to decide whether they wish to send their children to a private school or a state school. I believe that the most important thing for the Government is to make a significant investment in the education service of this country that will be used by the vast majority of parents. We can look at the hon. Gentleman's constituency and local education authority. There has been a massive increase in the money that we are giving to local education authorities. A massive amount of extra investment is going into schools and there are more teachers and more classroom assistants. That is the real commitment to state education and every single bit of it was opposed by the Conservative party.

Khalid Mahmood: Will my right hon. Friend give the House a firm commitment on when he intends to end the import of and trade in illegally logged timber in the UK?

Tony Blair: At present we are working on, and we are obviously strongly committed to, tackling illegal logging and its associated trade. We are doing what we can within the European Union because it is there that we need regulations to deal with illegal logging and to develop agreements with timber-producing countries. They would deny access to EU markets for illegally logged timber from such countries, so I hope that we will see a result in the European Union Council in the coming months.

Philip Hammond: If the Prime Minister refuses to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) in terms of his own children, will he tell the House what advice he would give to parents in Hackney who have deep misgivings about the quality of their local state schools?

Tony Blair: It is for individual parents to make up their minds about how to educate their children. It is not a good idea if the whole of the debate ends up being personalised around one Member of Parliament or another. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I think. In Hackney, at the moment, there is one city academy and it wants to open new city academies. There are specialist schools throughout the country that are gaining superb results. The fastest improving school in the country is actually in the public sector and is in Tower Hamlets. I have to say to him that the real issue is not what comments we can make about this or that Member of Parliament's children, but our commitment to state education in this country when we know that for years, under the previous Government, state education did not get the investment that it needed. The truth is that over the past few years we have put extra investment in the schools, as the hon. Gentleman knows from his constituency. He should have the honesty to tell his constituents that he opposed every penny piece of that investment.

Mike Gapes: Increases in police numbers and the number of community support officers, together with the growing use of antisocial behaviour orders, are very welcome, but can the Prime Minister explain to my constituents why some people with numerous convictions and some with bad character oppose vitally needed reforms of our antiquated criminal justice system in the other place?

Tony Blair: I hope that opposition to the Criminal Justice Bill is dropped when the measure returns to this House, because it is extremely important for this country. For example, it is clear that many juries should have greater access to information about defendants' previous convictions. Surely hon. Members on both sides of the House can agree that where there is evidence that juries have been interfered with in organised crime trials, the judge should have the power to put the right of jury trial to one side and try the case himself. Last year alone, there was a 9 million cost to the Metropolitan police for protecting victims and witnesses in organised crime trials. When the measure returns from the other place, I hope that we get a united House of Commons that reinstates it, because it is important for the future of criminal justice in this country.

Jenny Tonge: Given the Government's commitment not to sell arms to countries that will use them for internal repression or external aggression, why do we continue to sell arms to Israel?

Tony Blair: We actually have one of the strictest sets of rules on the sale of arms of any country. It is important that we hold to that, whatever the country concerned, and we do, whether it is in respect of Israel or anywhere else. Across the European Union, Britain probably has the toughest inhibitions on the sale of weapons. I do not believe that we should discriminate against any country. We should apply the rules fairly to all countries.

James Plaskitt: With 130 more nurses and 30 more registrars and consultants, activity levels at Warwick hospital since 1997 are up by 45 per cent., and all waiting times are down. The management team tell me, however, that with increasing patient choice it is essential for them to begin the process of moving towards foundation status. Can my right hon. Friend tell me that we will continue with both the investment and the reform?

Tony Blair: We certainly will continue with both. I am delighted that there is so much additional activity at Warwick hospital. As my hon. Friend knows, the new state-of-the-art accident and emergency department that is under construction and scheduled for completion this autumn will be able to cater for more than 50,000 patients annually. Massive investment is now going into our health service. He is also right to draw attention to the fact that the arguments for foundation status come from the hospitals themselves and the staff in those hospitalsdedicated NHS peoplewho believe that the next stage of change is to give them greater freedom and greater flexibility. We will deliver both to them.

Archie Norman: Is the Prime Minister aware of the very grave warnings given by the Royal College of Physicians and the British Medical Association on the implications of the working time directive for the NHS next year? Specifically, one in five accident and emergency departments may have to close at night, two thirds of acute medical units are insufficiently staffed, and practitioners, such as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor), forecast that smaller units in places such as Southport, Wakefield, Pontefract, Cheltenham and Hartlepool may have to close. Is it not common sense and in the interests of all patients to postpone implementation? If not, will the Prime Minister guarantee that none of those units will close as a consequence?

Tony Blair: The point the hon. Gentleman raises is important, which is why we have worked on it for many months to ensure that the impact of the working time directive is properly handled.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, the directive originally came into force a long time agoback in 1990, I think. It is important to recognise that we have a particular issue with junior house doctors' hours that means that we have to take great care with implementation, so we are in discussions with the European Union and with other partners. However, I say to the hon. Gentleman and, through him, to others that we will take account of the directive, but it is important to balance the clear need for doctors' hours to be reduced over time with the need to do so in a way that is compatible with the service.
	The hon. Gentleman will know from his constituency and others that there has been massive additional investment in accident and emergency departments in this countryabout 150 million has been spent on A and E departments alone. That is reducing the time that people have to wait in them.

Road Traffic Regulations (Consultation) Bill

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to create full statutory public consultation procedures wheresoever road traffic management schemes are proposed by local authorities.
	Three hundred and eighty years ago a shaggy-haired troublemaker was arrested in the cellars beneath the House of Lords. Guy Fawkes and his gang wanted to blow up Parliament, but the Bill I present today is less dramatic: there is no gunpowder involved, no treason andperhaps surprisinglyno plot. All I want to do is close a legal loophole and open up the process of democracy. My targetspeed limitsmight seem mundane, but the way in which speed limits are fixed has now become a muddle of paperwork. The process needs changing simply because it is out of date and denies local people any sort of intelligent consultation. My simple Bill would alter things for the better.
	Back in 1984, Parliament passed the Road Traffic Regulation Act. It was the technical bible of its time, stating how speed limits were to be set, with the then Department of Transport in complete charge of all facets of the process. In the intervening 19 years, there have been unseen changes, usually made through secondary legislationstatutory instruments that, by their nature, are subject to little, if any, parliamentary scrutiny. As a result, power has shifted dramatically away from the current Department for Transport. The big local authorities now set most speed limits, and these days they rarely have to tell the Department what they are up toin fact, in theory, they do not have to tell anyone much at all. The Department issues advisory circulars, but local authorities are leftrightly, in their eyesto get on with it. It is the nearest thing to unfettered power that we have in this country.
	All that a local authority with responsibility for traffic managementa county council, for example, although it could be another bodyis obliged to do is advertise any proposed scheme in a local newspaper. Only one advertisement is required. The rules do not insist that it be carried on the front page; consequently, speed limit changes are always tucked away in regional newspapers, on the back page and in very small print. They are phrased in legalistic gobbledygook and are, for the most part, ignored or, worse still, totally misunderstood.
	Local authorities do have a few legal obligations. They are supposed to consult the emergency servicesafter all, only the police have the power to enforce speed limits. However, there is no precise definition of consultation. Details of speed plans and limits are usually sent to town and parish councils for comment, but the system isdare I say it in this placealmost feudal. A bundle of official papers arrives on the desk of the clerk to the parish council: to his and most eyes, it looks like a fait accompli. Commenting or raising objections is not encouraged, and there is no legal arrangement for gathering any comments or, more important, for publishing them.
	The catch-all phrase that we have all seen in so many statutory instruments and Department for Transport circulars is, The local authority should consult as it sees fit. In other words, Do what you like, chaps. That shows a touching faith in human nature by assuming that local authorities always do the decent thing. The trouble is that they do not.
	Twelve months ago, Somerset county council came up with a wide-ranging new speed limit policy. It may have been, and probably was, conceived with the very best motives, including road safety, in mind, but it has proved a failure. Somerset now has hundreds more signs costing thousands of pounds throughout the county. I am informed that even the smallest signsthose of 2 ft in diametercost 70 each. The total bill for council tax payers is already hundreds of thousands of pounds.
	Unfortunately, many of those signs contradict one another. There is a village in Minehead with 14 new speed limits, each of them different, within less than 250 yd. The forest of ironwork is ugly and, more importantly, some of the speed restrictions are incredibly dangerous. According to the police, they are liable to cause accidents rather than prevent them. There is already hard evidence that they have caused accidents. Do not take my word for it. Leading members of the Institute of Advanced Motorists have said that it is true.
	The real abiding sore is that local people were not consulted first. It is the issue that has generated more debate, cross letters and public anger than anything in which I have been involved in Somerset for years. It is all because of lack of consultation with the general public. Parish councils were sent copies of the plans, but several of them now believe that they were duped. The documents supplied by the county council were insufficiently detailed for any informed comment to be made.
	The councillors who lodged objections or made constructive suggestions about the scheme were totally ignored. Other parish councillors, who lobbied the county council to introduce new schemes, were also ignored. The message is, If you don't want speed limits, tough; if you do want them, tougher still. That strikes me as a funny old way to run a policy.
	Consultation is a buzz word of the age. Every hon. Member, political party and public pronouncement trumpets the value of consultation. The trouble is that we do not spell out what we mean by it. My Bill does. I propose a legal requirement for consultation. County councils would be obliged to take town and parish councils into their confidence at an early stage. Any objections would have to be published by the county council in detail, including its reasons for accepting or rejecting them. They would be duty-bound to hold well-publicised public meetings to assess local reaction to proposals and to publish that reaction before the proposal is enacted.
	These are not revolutionary ideas. Many progressive county councils across England and Wales have already adopted the approach. If others did, I and other hon. Members would not be being botheredbut they have not.
	In this instance Somerset has got it wrong. The county council knows it and it has admitted it privately. We now have to reverse the process before there are more injuries and trouble. After 12 months of speed-sign chaos, the county council is surveying public opinion. It has issued detailed questionnaires and invited people to give their views. Rightly, it has set up a commission to enable that to be done. It is beginning to do the very thing that should have been done in the first place before the policy was enacted. However, we must remember that, regardless, Somerset is under no legal obligation to take a blind bit of notice of what is said, or even to publish the results after the horse-has-bolted consultation exercise.
	That is why the Bill is necessary. It would stop what has happened in Somerset and elsewhere so that, anywhere in the country, people would rightly be consulted about their feelings. It would give town and parish councils a meaningful role in representing the views of local people; ensure that county councils come clean about their plans; guarantee that different voices are heard; help to prevent the introduction of costly schemes; save the taxpayer a great deal of money; and, above all, it would assist democracy. The National Association of Local Councils is backing it, as is the Campaign to Protect Rural England. The Bill is a simple, straightforward measure with a simple, straightforward purpose, and I commend it to the House.

David Laws: I understand why the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) has introduced his Bill, but his conclusions are wrong, and there is a danger that it could end up as a bureaucrats' charter. Consultation on traffic schemes is a major issue in Somerset, not least because the county council, as he implied, has introduced many speed management schemes to reduce accidents in accident blackspots and improve road safety outside schools. In addition, many rural communities and parish councils are unhappy with the fact that, by default, the speed limit is 60 mph in those communities. We need to consider what sort of consultation we need before such schemes are introduced. Contrary to the hon. Gentleman's comments, those schemes are often extremely successfulmany in Somerset have cut injury accidents by up to a third.
	There is substantial consultation before such schemes are introduced. Indeed, when implementing traffic management improvements requiring traffic regulation orders, Somerset county council consults in accordance with statutory requirements and best practice. It follows prescribed consultation arrangements and provides a site notice, and there is an opportunity for people to make representations, which have to be considered before any traffic order is confirmed. When a new speed limit is going to be introduced to address a known accident problem, there is extensive consultation of all the relevant bodies and individuals before a local safety scheme is established.
	That consultation involves parish councils, district councils, local county councillors, the police, emergency services and members of the public who are directly affected by the scheme. As the hon. Gentleman suggested, adverts are placed in the local press in accordance with statutory requirements. In addition, the assistance of parish councils, and the use of their notice facilities, is regularly sought. Indeed, when local communities press for road safety schemes in my constituency, the criticism I often hear concerns the time taken to introduce them because of the consultation that has to take place.
	The hon. Gentleman did not sufficiently highlight the fact that many of the schemes introduced by Somerset county council and, no doubt, other county councils are introduced at the request of parish councils. There is often a great deal of local concern about high traffic speeds and road safety outside schools.
	The programme in Somerset was developed in response to countywide concerns about community safety and the impact of speeding traffic in settlements. The hon. Gentleman will know that there are 2,600 injury accidents on the roads in Somerset every year, and 45 fatalities. The measures put in place by Somerset county council are designed to make our communities safer, reducing the speed of traffic in settlements and the number of injury accidents. In view of those arrangements, it is difficult to understand how consultation could be further improved by any statutory requirement.
	However, the county council recognises that not all highways authorities in other counties conduct the extensive consultations that regularly take place in Somerset. We can only assume that in his Bill the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make mandatory across the country the excellent best practice in Somerset. If he is trying to advertise the excellence of our consultation in Somerset and argue that it should be extended across the country, he will have our support, but I fear that his speech implied that we could end up with extra bureaucracy, more delay before the schemes are put in place and extra road safety problems and accidents. If that is what he is proposing, he will not have my support or that of my constituents. Such a proposal seems neither very conservative nor very sensible, and not in the interests of our constituents. Instead, it would be a bureaucrats' charter and delay useful road traffic schemes rather than ensuring that they were better.
	Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Liddell-Grainger, Mr. Kevan Jones, Mr. Andrew Rosindell, Mr. Tim Boswell, Mr. Andrew Turner, Mr. John Burnett, John Thurso, Mr. David Clelland and Mr. Adrian Flook.

Road Traffic Regulations (Consultation)

Mr. Liddell-Grainger accordingly presented a Bill to create full statutory public consultation procedures wheresoever road traffic management schemes are proposed by local authorities: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 November, and to be printed [Bill 174].

Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that I recall that rulings have been made from the Chair that votes should follow voices and that, particularly in the case of ten-minute Bills such as the one that we have just considered, it was not the done thingI put it no more stronglyfor people to seek to make a cheap speech opposing a Bill without following it by dividing the House. I do not necessarily want you to make an instant ruling, but it would help the House to know whether that ruling is indeed still in force, or whether I can now speak against every ten-minute Bill and then not bother to divide the House.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has a good reputation for dividing the House. I remember him doing so at 2 o'clock in the morning when I was a Deputy Speaker, and I was very grateful to him for doing so. We are all on a learning curve from time to time, and I say to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) that the next time he opposes a Bill, if he gently says no, it will allow me to express an opinion that the Ayes have it. He does not need to divide the House, but a voice should be heard when I invite the House to divide.

John Bercow: Put it down to his inexperience.

Mr. Speaker: We all have to learneven the hon. Gentleman.

Opposition Day
	  
	[6th Allotted Day] [2nd Part]

Decommissioning (Northern Ireland)

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Quentin Davies: I beg to move,
	That this House expresses its profound disquiet at the accounts given by the Prime Minister and by General de Chastelain on the issue of whether information on the latest IRA act of decommissioning, additional to that made public, was given by General de Chastelain to the UK and Irish Governments; believes that the credibility of both the Prime Minister and of General de Chastelain are of vital importance in the successful conclusion of the Northern Ireland peace process; and therefore considers it imperative that this matter should be clarified urgently and unambiguously.
	Let me start by dealing with the issue of bipartisanship. Over the past two weeks, every time we have raised the issue of the Prime Minister's assurance about the latest IRA act of decommissioning and the conflict between his own statements and those of General de Chastelain, or every time the Government have thought or feared that we were about to do so, a number of Labour Back Benchers, apparently entirely spontaneously, have started to talk about bipartisanship in terms such as Wouldn't it be a good thing for Northern Ireland if the Opposition could only be bipartisan?
	We have been a responsible Opposition on Northern Ireland, and we shall remain so. We support the Government entirely on their objectives and the Belfast agreement. We have always supported them on tactics when they have done what we thought were the right things. But one thing that the Government and even the Whips and spin doctors in No. 10 surely cannot expect us to do in any circumstances is to be party to a cover-up and acquiesce in a deception of the public. That would be a veritable perversion of bipartisanship. It would be the political class ganging up against the public whom we are all elected to serve. It would be to betray the most fundamental purpose of having a Parliamentto ensure honest and transparent government.

Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Quentin Davies: No, I will not. I am not going to give way to Labour Members at all, for the simple reason that only the Prime Minister can throw light on the questions that I am going to ask. The Prime Minister should be here in person instead of relying on proxies, whether ministerial or from the Back Benches, to try to defend him. Since he alone is in a position to answer these questions, I shall wait until he appears: if he has the courage to do so, I shall certainly give way to him.
	The problem that brings us to this debate is simply stated. On 22 October, the Prime Minister, speaking at Prime Minister's questions about the previous day's act of decommissioning by the IRA, said of General de Chastelain:
	He gives certain informationnot the full information, but certain informationto us, as the two Governments. Although we are not at liberty to disclose that information without his permission, we are working hard to try to find a way in which we can do so, because I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details.[Official Report, 22 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 634.]
	There are two salient points about that answer that the House should note. First, there is the factual, or purportedly factual, statement that General de Chastelain gives, and on this occasion gave, certain information to the two Governments that he did not disclose and that the two Governments are not at liberty to disclose to the public. That is a matter of fact, and on it there was a very clear statement of fact by the Prime Minister. Secondly, there is the assurance, explicitly based on that information, to the effect that, if people knew the details that the Prime Minister knows, they would be satisfied. That is not a factual statement: it is an assurance based on a judgment. But, of course, if no additional information was available to the Prime Minister, that judgment could not in good faith have been made, and the assurance would be worthless, irresponsible and, worst of all, dishonest.
	I am afraid that the kernel of the issue that we all have to confront, whether we like it or not, is this: General de Chastelain has said, unambiguously and in every conversation that he has had on the subject over the past two weeks, that he does not give supplementary information to the two Governments and that he did not do so on this occasion. In other words, he has directly contradicted the factual statement made by the Prime Minister in the House on 22 October. He has repeated that at every possible opportunity, including in two extensive conversations with me.
	Let me read from a transcript of one such conversation that took place in a meeting in which I was not involved. Several people were present on both sides of the table. There is a formal record of that meeting, which was between General de Chastelain and members of the Democratic Unionist party. PR is Peter Robinson, the hon. Member for Belfast, East; GDC is General de Chastelain; and DP is Dr. Paisley, the hon. Member for North Antrim. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall place a copy of that record in the Library after I have spoken. I quote:
	PRDid you go beyond the descriptive terms in report or conference when talking to the PMs?
	GDCI gave them no more detail than I have told you.
	DPThe governments have no more information on the last reports?
	GDCUnless they are reading something else into the reports.
	PRThe 2 governments see certain things. They didn't see it from you?
	GDCThey have no more information than what was made public.
	In view of the importance of this matter, I shall repeat that last quotation from General de Chastelain:
	They have no more information than what was made public.
	The House will be able to compare those words with the Prime Minister's words of the day before and the Wednesday after21 and 29 Octoberwhich I have already quoted. Let me quote and contrast what the Prime Minister said last Wednesday29 Octoberat Prime Minister's questions. He said:
	certain information was given to us by General de Chastelain and I had very much hoped that it would have been possible to provide the full information to everybody.[Official Report, 29 November 2003; Vol. 412, c. 300.]
	One could not have a more stark contrast or a more thoroughly documented conflict of words than that.

Henry Bellingham: My hon. Friend was at Prime Minister's questions today when the Prime Minister said that he had extra duties in this House later today. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of those duties should have been to come here and listen to him? The Prime Minister is the only person who can respond, so surely he should be here now?

Quentin Davies: I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. A great many people throughout the country will think exactly the same and draw their own conclusions from the fact that the Prime Minister did not want to face up to the points that he knew that I was going to put to him.

Kevin Brennan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Although it is the hon. Gentleman's decision whom he gives way to, is it in order for him to accuse Labour Back Benchers of making orchestrated interventions on him, then to give way to a Member on his side of the House having said that he did not intend to give way at all?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is trying to draw me into the debate.

Quentin Davies: It is a great shame that Labour Members, in a mistaken attempt to put up a cloud of camouflage, should raise such completely bogus points of order. Every parliamentarian, whatever his party allegiance, should focus on this clear issue that goes to the heart of integrity in Government and truthfulness in this House of Commons. Labour Members are getting agitated because we have got to the kernel of the issue. The plain fact is that the Prime Minister and General de Chastelain cannot, unfortunately, both be speaking the truth. The House urgently needs to discover which one of the two it is.

Helen Jackson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I not right in thinking that we have already debated this issue twice: first, in a statement made by the Secretary of State on 22 October; and secondly, on an urgent question, which you allowed almost a week later? We have had two debates, and there is no new material.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a debate on a substantive motion before the House: that is very different from a statement. The hon. Gentleman is in order; if he goes out of order, I shall soon tell him so.

Quentin Davies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	The Opposition are raising this issue and Government Back Benchers can think of nothing better to do than to try to distract attention with points of order. That speaks for itself. As for the hon. Lady's point of order, it was so spontaneous that she had to read it out.

Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Quentin Davies: I have already explained why I will not give way to Labour Members on this occasion. The matters that we are discussing are extremely grave, and only the Prime Minister is in a position to answer. When he comes here, as he should, I shall certainly give way to him.

John Bercow: Notwithstanding the undoubted dedication to her duties of the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), is it not regrettable, even if unavoidable, that the Secretary of State is unable to be with us? Does not that underline the importance of the Prime Minister's making an appearance some time between now and the end of this important debate?

Quentin Davies: I think that people will draw their own conclusions from the obvious discomfort of the Prime Minister's Cabinet colleagues and their desire to stay away from the debate. I have some sympathy with them in that regard, given the unpleasant reality that we all have to face.
	It is urgent that the House get to the bottom of this matter. It is clear that Labour Members do not wish to do so; that is the last thing they want. I intend to proceed, however. There are three reasons why this is so important, and I would have hoped that they would have been clear to everyone on both sides of the Chamber. First, General de Chastelain is a very distinguished public servant. He is a former chairman of the Canadian chiefs of staff, and a former Canadian ambassador to the United States. He generously agreed to give up what has now been several years of his life to preside over the Decommissioning Commission. As a public servant, he cannot defend himself in the media. It cannot be right that his veracity and reliability should be impugned without the case against him being examined very thoroughly indeed.
	The second reason goes right to the heart of the peace process in Northern Ireland, which must, if it is to be successful, include the completion of decommissioning. For that reason, it is very important that the Decommissioning Commission should be able to operate. That means that, like it or not, the paramilitary organisations and the people of Northern Ireland as a whole must have trust in it, and in the veracity of its chairman, General de Chastelain. There will be a considerable crisis if that trust disappears.
	The gravest, and by far the most important, aspect of this is a matter of fundamental constitutional moment. It is the issue of whether the House and the British public have been told the truth.

Lembit �pik: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the core problem is that General de Chastelain has now been put in the position of having repeatedly to deny that he has given more information to anyone else, and that there is an air of questioning about whether that is the case? The only person who can put that right is the Prime Minister.

Quentin Davies: I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman. He and I share the view that this is an extremely important matterI think that everyone would agree with thatand that the Prime Minister should have the courage to come to the House to give his own explanation.
	None of us needs to be lectured on the importance of telling the truth in the House, and I am certainly not going to do that. None of us needs reminding of the occasions in our lifetime, if not our memory, on which it has been alleged that Ministers have lied to the House. I can think of only two in the last 50 years: John Profumo in 1963 and James Callaghannow Lord Callaghanover devaluation in 1967. In both cases, they used ambiguous phrases rather than directly contradicting the truth. Nevertheless, they both resigned. I simply ask the House what precedent we would be establishing if we were to decide here and now, in 2003, that the very issue of veracity was no longer worth getting to the bottom of, or that the penalty for lack of veracity was nothing at all.
	Finally, there is the important matter of the assurance that the Prime Minister gave. I shall quote him again:
	I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details.[Official Report, 22 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 634.]
	That is a very significant assurance.

Kevin Brennan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to question the veracity of the Prime Minister's statements to the House?

Mr. Speaker: It is out of order. I would say to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) that he is getting very close to the wire. He is beginning to make accusations against the Prime Minister in a roundabout way. The motion does not attack the Prime Minister in the manner that the hon. Gentleman is adopting at the moment. I must tell him to be very careful about what he is saying.

Quentin Davies: The motion, as your Clerks have always advised, Mr. Speaker, had to be phrased in a very neutral way, and I understand the reasons for that. The matter that I am raising is of enormous importance, and I have made it clear to the House on this and other occasions that I do not shy away from that importance. I have been very careful, however, to avoid unparliamentary language

Mr. Speaker: Order. Of course it is a good thing to go to the Clerks for advice. That is important. The Clerks informed the hon. Gentleman that the motion had to be phrased in a neutral manner, but he must follow the sentiments of that motion. He cannot get away with saying that the motion is phrased in a neutral manner because the Clerks said that it should be, and then going beyond that neutrality.

Quentin Davies: I understand, Mr. Speaker, and I know that you and the House will understand the position in which I find myself. I know that you will share the view of all parliamentarians that issues such as these have to be raised, and that they must be raised in a parliamentary fashion. I am certainly endeavouring to do that. However, the public who send us here would not forgive us if we found some procedural strategy for burying such unpleasant issues permanently under the carpet.
	As I was saying, there is the additional, but certainly not unimportant, matter of the assurance that the Prime Minister gave to the House:
	I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details.[Official Report, 22 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 634.]
	That is a significant assurance. The whole House will agree that anyone in a position of trust must be very careful about giving assurances; the greater the trust, the greater the responsibility. That applies throughout life, and in the professions. What would we think of a doctor who said, I have examined this patient. I cannot describe his condition to you because of patient confidentiality, but I can tell you that he has not got an infectious disease, when he had actually never examined the patient at all, the assurance was worthless, and some decision, fatal to others, had been taken on the basis of it?
	What would we think of an accountant who said, I cannot give you the balance sheet and profit-and-loss account of this company, because they are confidential, but I have examined the figures, and if you knew what I know, you would be happy to trade with it or invest in it, when actually he had never seen the figures, and his assurance was entirely bogus? What would we think of such a doctor or accountant? Would we think that they were fit and proper people to work in their chosen professions, and that they ought to remain in them?
	What about a Prime Minister who behaved in such a way? Would we think him a fit and proper person for that role? Does it matter whether the British people can trust their Prime Minister? Is it not vital that the House and the country know the truth?

Kevin Brennan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has just implied that the Prime Minister's statements to the House were entirely bogus. Is that in order?

Mr. Speaker: I do not wish to prevent the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford from speaking openly in the House, but if he wished to say the things that he was saying just now about the Prime Minister, he really should have put a motion of no confidence before the House. He has, however, put this motion before the House, and he is now going beyond the terms of the motion. I say to the hon. Gentleman againI am giving him good advicethat he must be very careful about what he says from now on.

John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you guide me, in accordance with precedent and advice that right hon. and hon. Members have received? I am among those who have received such advice. Can you confirm that it remains the case that, whereas to accuse someone of lying is unparliamentary, the suggestion that a right hon. or hon. Member might inadvertently have given credence to an untruth is entirely parliamentary?

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing inadvertent about what the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford is saying before me. That is different, and I must tell him that it might come to the stage where I have to stop him.

Quentin Davies: Mr. Speaker, I shall continue to endeavour to avoid any unparliamentary language. I am familiar with the difficulty in which you find yourself, and I recall another famous precedentthat of Winston Churchill, who was once allowed to use the words terminological inexactitude.

Roy Beggs: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Quentin Davies: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not. I have almost reached the end of my remarks.
	Does it not go to the heart of our democracy that the British people can always trust the office of the Prime Minister? That is surely a legitimate question for me to ask today, and a question that the public who send us here hope that we continually ask ourselves. The Prime Minister himself needs to clear this matter up. He needs to come before the House without delay to make a personal statement and to answer questions on it, so that we can lay this matter to rest, one way or the other, once and for all.

Jane Kennedy: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	notes the importance of confidentiality to effective decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland; expresses its gratitude for the professionalism of General de Chastelain and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning; welcomes the further positive developments in the peace process set out by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his statement to the House on 22nd October, including the calling of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 26th November; calls on all parties in the House to engage constructively in furthering the peace process in Northern Ireland; and looks forward to further progress after the elections towards the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland on a stable and inclusive basis.

Jackie Lawrence: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jane Kennedy: I will.

Jackie Lawrence: In the light of Opposition comments, will my right hon. Friend confirm that the amendment congratulates General de Chastelain on the professional way in which he is handling the issue in Northern Ireland?

Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend is right. We can all read the amendment.
	We are always happy to discuss Northern Ireland issues in this place, but I have serious doubts about the appropriateness of the debate at this point and about what motivated the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) to table the motion. You will recall last week's urgent question, Mr. Speaker, during which you had cause

Quentin Davies: Will the Minister give way?

Jane Kennedy: Let me make my point first. Then I shall be happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
	On that occasion, Mr. Speaker, you had cause gently to chastise the hon. Gentleman for making a speech when he should have been asking a question. I recall the occasion vividly, as I replied to the question.
	It is a little like Groundhog Day. I suppose I can take some comfort from the fact that although the hon. Gentleman has had two opportunities to make the speech we have just heard, it is unlikelyif the newspaper reports are correctthat he will have an opportunity to make the same points again from his current position. Let me add, however, that personally I wish him well in the forthcoming reshuffle.
	Members will have their own views on the wisdom

Quentin Davies: Will the Minister give way?

Jane Kennedy: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself for a few moments, I will give way to him shortly.
	As I was saying, Members will have their own views on the wisdom of initiating such a debate in the middle of an election campaign in Northern Ireland. This is a time when the parties and voters in Northern Ireland should be discussing issues among themselves, and it is a time when many Northern Ireland Members would like to be out campaigning. As we are to have a debate, however, I think it right in principle for us here to show restraint during this period, and to avoid becoming part of the election campaign.
	It may interest the House to know that this morning the Conservative party launched its own Northern Ireland election campaign. Let me quote from its party political broadcast.
	I'm asking you to cast your vote on the 26th November for the Conservative Party. We are the only one of the three national parties in the United Kingdom to take part in elections here.
	There we have it. The synthetic indignation to which we have been subjected this afternoon is all about a party political campaign cynically motivated to inspire today's debate.
	At this point I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Quentin Davies: I understand the difficulty in which the Minister finds herself. Hers is the unfortunate role of having to obfuscate and find complete irrelevancies.
	The Minister speculated aloud about my motives in raising this issue last week and again this week. Let me put her mind at rest: it has nothing whatever to do with my position in the Conservative party. I would do exactly the same from the Back Benches. I would think it the duty of any Member to raise the issue here if he or she were aware of the facts of which I have become aware as a result of my conversations with General de Chastelain, and of the other evidence I have given the House. That seems to me a fundamental duty. I would be failing in that duty if I suppressed the facts, and did not allow the House to focus on these vital questions.

Jane Kennedy: I suppose we note the hon. Gentleman's comments; but I believe that the great majority of Members hope for a positive and constructive outcome from the election campaign which will lead to the formation of an inclusive Executive in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I think that in principle that is the hon. Gentleman's position, but I must questionnot for the first timethe maturity of his judgment in relation to what he seeks to achieve today.

Lembit �pik: Will the Minister give way?

Jane Kennedy: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will make some progress.

Lembit �pik: rose

Jane Kennedy: As I have said, I want to make some progress.
	The campaign unfolding in Northern Ireland is, in fact, focusing on the future, and I believe that in most respects it is predominantly constructive. From all or at least most quarters, we are hearing imaginative and hopeful comments.
	A cheap point was made about the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He is not here today, which is why I have the privilege of speaking. He is visiting Canada and the United States to communicate the real progress made in Northern Irelandincluding the progress made during the last few weeksand to thank the Governments and people of those countries for their positive contributions to the Northern Ireland peace process. In Canada, my right hon. Friend has seen the Prime Minister and other Ministers. High on the list of points he has made to everyone he has met there is the vital contribution of General de Chastelain, and indeed that of other Canadians who have been involved in the process.
	Since the general's name has been dragged into the debate and his credibility questioned in such a regrettable way by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, let me make it clear that we regard both him and his colleague Mr. Andrew Sens as men of vast experience and expertise.

Lembit �pik: Whatever the Minister may feel about the Conservative party's motives on this occasion, I must tell her that the Liberal Democrats share some of its concerns. This is not about the credibility or integrity of General de Chastelain. We need to clarify a point that confused not just politicians but many members of the public, who were given the impression that there was information in the Prime Minister's remit that had not been shared with them.

Jane Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make his points later if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker. But I will come to them in a moment if he is patient.
	Most important of all, we regard the general and Mr. Sens as men of cast-iron integrity. Without that integrity, they would not have gained the trust that has been necessary for us to make the advances we have made in decommissioning. Here, as in other areas of life in Northern Ireland, we can advance only by developing trust and confidence. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford either has not recognised that or, if he has, thinks that the scoring of cheap party political points in this place is more important than working together to deliver a more peaceful future and greater well-being to a part of the United Kingdom.

Jackie Lawrence: rose

Quentin Davies: Will the Minister give way?

Jane Kennedy: I gave way to the hon. Gentleman earlier and ended up regretting it, so I think I will give way to my hon. Friend first.

Jackie Lawrence: Does my hon. Friend recall that in a debate on Northern Ireland on 22 November 1999 the then right hon. Member for Huntingdon said It looks as if we are finally looking towards a permanent solution in Northern Ireland. I fervently hope that that is the case? Does my hon. Friend agree that that demonstrates a mature and bipartisan approach to the Northern Ireland issue, measured in terms of action rather than words?

Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I regret what appears to be the Conservative party's present lack of a bipartisan approach.
	The hon. Gentleman wanted to intervene. I regretted giving way to him earlier merely because of the long-winded nature of his intervention, and the fact that he did not make any point worth making.

Quentin Davies: I have already dealt with the issue of bipartisanship. As for the issue of confidence and trust, I entirely agree with the Minister. I said the same myself. It is because it is so important to restore confidence and trust, and because of the glaring discrepancy between the Prime Minister's remarks and the statements of General de Chastelain, that we need to clear the matter up. If the Minister wants to restore trust in the Northern Ireland peace process, let alone in this Parliament, she ought to contribute to that clarification by getting her right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the House as soon as possible.

Jane Kennedy: May I respectfully suggest that the hon. Gentleman might like to take a pill, wrap a wet towel around his head, lie down in a darkened room, contain himself and deal with what are very serious issues without being histrionic.

Andrew Robathan: The Minister is talking about trust, and the amendment mentions General de Chastelain. The question that we are asking is: can we trust General de Chastelain? It is quite straightforward. Can we trust what he has said? She has to answer that, because either we can or we cannot. The Prime Minister has said that we can, but then General de Chastelain has contradicted him. That is part of a pattern that relates to the dodgy dossier, because Dr. Kelly had something very different to say. Will she answer that?

Jane Kennedy: I am not sure that I would be allowed to follow the hon. Gentleman down that route given the terms of the debate, but I will answer those points shortly if I may make some progress.
	The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford did not adequately address the issue of bipartisanship. Moreover, he is wrong, because he does not appreciate Labour Members' disappointment at the breach of the bipartisan approach. Previous Opposition spokesmen, of both parties, have not taken the hon. Gentleman's approach and they have followed, perfectly honourably, a policy of bipartisanship. That is not to say that they have refrained from criticising the Government, or failed in their duty to hold them to account, but they have acted reasonably and with judgment. That was a perfectly honourable role for the Opposition to take.

Kevin Brennan: We do not doubt that the views of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) on Northern Ireland are sincerely and passionately held, but the real issue is one of tone. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the tone in which he has raised the subject in recent months that has led many Labour Members, completely independently, not through any orchestration, to question the manner in which he raises his sincerely held views?

Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that the approach of previous Opposition spokesmen served both Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole much better than the approach adopted by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford.
	As for the specific questions that the hon. Gentleman raised, let me make a preliminary point. Of course we do not seek confidentiality in respect of decommissioning. On the contrary, we believe that the greatest possible transparency is preferable. Following the IRA decommissioning of last month, there was constructive engagement on that issue. It did not result in agreement, but real progress was made.
	The hon. Gentleman needs to realise, however, that what we are talking about is putting arms beyond use by agreement. If the police find illegal weapons, they will, of course, seize them, and I expect that we would not have any difficulties about transparency, but that is not the situation that we are talking about. The process of decommissioning, which I believe the hon. Gentleman, as a declared supporter of the Good Friday agreement, must support in principle, involves the co-operation of the organisation doing the decommissioning. Strident statements in the Chamber about the terms on which it should be done do not help to bring it about.

Judy Mallaber: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there has been no suggestion that there was no substantial act of decommissioning, which should be able to assist us in the positive process of getting a peaceful resolution in Northern Ireland? Can she confirm what was said and what the attitude was of the Taoiseach after his discussions with General de Chastelain?

Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend makes two valid points. First, I am not aware of anyone questioning the fact that the act of decommissioning has been described as significant, and that the general's report indicated an event of significance for everyone with the interests of Northern Ireland at heart. Secondly, the Taoiseach confirmed that the sense that he had been given in his conversation with the general about the scale and nature of the event was that it was greater than the description that the general was able to give in his statement and even in the press conference that followed, but I will develop that theme shortly.
	May I make some final points about the approach of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford? Quite apart from the possible impact of the hon. Gentleman's comments on Northern Ireland politics, I believe that he is attempting to drive a wedge between the two Governments, the Government of Britain and the Government of Ireland, and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. His attempts are irresponsible in relation to the credibility of the commission, although I do not believe that they will damage it because the commission remains an extremely important part of the machinery that is designed to bring long-term peace to Northern Ireland. With the developments of the past few weeks, we have the prospect of a process that will put all IRA weapons beyond use. The commission would be the instrument of that historic transformation. Undermining General de Chastelain and the commission, which is liable to be the effect of the hon. Gentleman's behaviour, if not his intention, is profoundly damaging to prospects for advancing the peace process.

Alistair Carmichael: May I say to the Minister in a spirit of bipartisanship that for the Prime Minister to say that he had been given information that General de Chastelain says he had not been given must inevitably undermine that process?

Jane Kennedy: As I have said, the Government's view is that we would prefer the decommissioning process to be transparent. Therefore, it is a matter of regret that[Interruption.] Hon. Members may just like to calm down a little and listen to my answer. It is a matter of regret that, because of the lack of transparency surrounding that event, we were not in a position to restore trust and confidence between the parties in Northern Ireland. May I address the point raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) by turning to what was said a fortnight ago at Hillsborough? We had an urgent question last week, in which I set all this out, and I will do so again.
	At Hillsborough on the afternoon of 21 October, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach were able to learn more about the decommissioning event than was set out in the statement issued by the decommissioning commission. That is not in the least surprising. The commission's statement was very short: a few lines. However, General de Chastelain and Mr. Sens gave a press conference afterwards. It lasted for about 15 minutes. I think that no one who was at the press conference, who saw it on the television, or who has subsequently read reports of it could deny that it added to their understanding of what was involved in the decommissioning event over and above the brief words of the statement itself.
	There were some extremely illuminating passages. For example, General de Chastelain described what might be included in various terms used in his statement. Mr. Sens commented that
	the material we saw put beyond use this morning could have caused death or destruction on a huge scale if it had been used.
	There is no doubt that such comments instilled a much greater sense of what was involved in the act of decommissioning than the mere words of the statement alone. In speaking as they did, General de Chastelain and Mr. Sens breached no confidences. They certainly set out no inventories.
	As I said, the press conference lasted for about a quarter of an hour. General de Chastelain and Mr. Sens were with the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, in advance of their press statement, for an hour or more. Therefore, it is perfectly understandable that, in the course of such a meeting, they developed a still clearer understanding than observers of the press conference were able to develop about what was involved in the IRA decommissioning act. As the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach made clear, they were not given the full information in the commission's possession. But they were able, as a result of what they had learned, to indicate with conviction that there had indeed been a substantial act of decommissioning. That was implicit in what the general and Mr. Sens said at the press conference, but it is hardly surprising that the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach had a still greater sense of the importance of the eventeven than those who attended or saw the press conference. There is really no more to it than that.

Roy Beggs: rose

Quentin Davies: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Jane Kennedy: No, I shall not. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman several times during this debate, and in that regard I have shown more courtesy than he was prepared to show to my Back-Bench colleagues during his contribution. However, I shall give way to the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs).

Roy Beggs: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Does she accept that the failure to disclose the detail on, and extent of, the decommissioning that has occurred to date can provoke thoughts of a similarity to the experience of Lord Saville at the Bloody Sunday inquiry? Lord Saville said to the IRA contact on decommissioning, Martin McGuinness:
	Firstly you are depriving us of the opportunity of discovering the full facts and matters relating to Bloody Sunday, and secondly it will be suggested in due course, that if you are not answering these questions you have something to hide.
	Is there not the danger that General de Chastelain and the Prime Ministers are currently having similarly frustrating experiences in their contacts with IRA contact on decommissioning, Martin McGuinness? Is that not the reason for the confusion, or, indeed, do they all have something to hide?

Jane Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point, and I shall respond in this way. I agree that the lack of transparency surrounding the event has led to the speculation now taking place. That is a matter of regret; however, it is part of the process. What we now want to see is further progress towards complete decommissioning of all weapons by all paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland.
	Attempts to play with wordsto imply that people have been misled, in order to stir up distrust and suspicionare going to advance nothing, and certainly not the prospects for a better future for Northern Ireland. They are highly irresponsible and will impress no one. We need to focus on the future. Real steps forward were achieved on 21 October. A speech by the leader of Sinn Fein referred to the
	full and final closure of the conflict'.
	That speech was endorsed by the IRA. A third act of decommissioning by the IRA took place that was considerably larger than its predecessors, and the prospect was opened up of a continuing process of decommissioning to put all arms beyond use.
	On a political level, we saw engagement between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist party of a kind never seen before. At least 15 meetings took place between those parties. They did not produce a resolution of the outstanding issues last month, but they are full of promise for the future. That is the advance that has been achieved in Northern Ireland, and the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have applied themselves to it extremely diligently. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, although he professes to be a supporter of the Good Friday agreement, has given the process no assistance at all. He has sought to impede it in various ways, in the hope of gaining some advantage here. Well, I am afraid that he has failed, and failed again today. After the election, we shall seek to advance the political process in Northern Ireland again. It will probably not be an easy road, but I am sure that the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will put all their effort into it.

Judy Mallaber: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jane Kennedy: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I am coming to the end of my remarks.
	Real gains have been made within recent weeks in the difficult and sometimes painful process of healing divisions in Northern Ireland. There is a constructive spirit abroad in relation to Northern Ireland affairsin Northern Ireland and beyond. The Opposition have other preoccupations. I urge them to put them aside, and to play their part.

Lembit �pik: I should begin by making one thing absolutely clear to the Minister. She may question the motives of the Conservative party this afternoon, and speak long and hard about her dissatisfaction with what the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) has said in the past about Northern Ireland. She will, of course, know that I have chosen many times to take issue with what I regarded as a cynical approach to Northern Ireland issues. Indeed, on many other occasions I have gone on the record in this Chamber as sticking up for exactly what she proposed; however, this is not one of those occasions. The Minister needs to understand that, regardless of what she thinks the Conservatives' motives are this afternoon, the Liberal Democrats share their concern about what happened in respect of the Prime Ministers' comments and the information that lies behind them. So unless she wants to suggest that we are somehow in league with the Conservatives in order to score cheap political points, she will have to accept that there is a case to answer. I did not hear that answer in what she said.
	The issue of decommissioning, particularly decommissioning by the IRA, has been a thorn in the side of the peace process since the Good Friday agreement was signedthere is no question about that. The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, headed by General John de Chastelain, was set up in 1997 to oversee the destruction of paramilitary weapons. Since then, the general and his colleagues have worked in very difficult circumstances. Contact between the commission and the various paramilitary groups has often been infrequent, with different organisations breaking contact altogether with the commission at various stages in the past six years.
	We can all agree that, throughout that time, General de Chastelain and his colleagues in the commission have acted with the utmost integrity. So my first point is that there seems to be universal agreement in this Chambercertainly among Conservatives, Labour Members and Liberal Democratsthat General de Chastelain has impeccable integrity. That is very important in terms of analysing the situation as a whole. Indeed, such integrity is vital to the success of the commission's role.
	My second point is that that integrity must be maintained. Trust in General de Chastelain must be complete in the eyes of the paramilitaries, in order that he can carry out his functions. The IRA views itself as a legitimate army. This is not the place to conduct a long monologue about the IRA, but in trying to understand its relationship with the commission we must recognise how it sees itself, rather than focusing on how others might choose to see it. I should make it clear that my party and I do not condone, and never have condoned, what the IRA or any other paramilitary group has undertaken in terms of violence and intimidation in the Province. However, as I said, it views itself as an army and does not believe that it has been militarily defeated. So, for the IRA, decommissioning its weapons has been a huge psychological step.
	For such acts to come about, General de Chastelain has needed to secure the IRA's trust, and I believe that he has acted impeccably in that regard as well. Of course, the commission also needs the trust of the public in Northern Ireland, so we must all recogniseI hope that this is a further point of agreementthat General de Chastelain must never be put in a situation that compromises his apparent integrity in his communications with the paramilitaries and, equally importantly, his integrity in the eyes of the general public.
	That leads me to the third, and crucial, element of today's debate. There simply would not be enough public confidence in decommissioning without an independent outside body to confirm that such acts had taken place. It is hugely regrettable that in recent weeks this delicate balance, on which we all seem to agree, has been called into question. In my judgment, the Prime Minister's intervention has added confusion, without doing anything constructive to help to resolve the issues. I listened to the Minister and her liberal criticisms of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford. On this occasion, however, she is adding fog rather than clarity to events. I was waiting for her to explain precisely what the Prime Minister had in his possession in the way of informationnot a guess or a judgmentto give him the extra confidence to make the claims that he did.

Alistair Carmichael: Did my hon. Friend notice, as I did, that the Minister's words today were that the Prime Minister had a sense of what had happened, whereas the Prime Minister's own words were that he had information about it? Does my hon. Friend agree that those are very different things and that the circle will have to be squared if the Prime Minister's role is to be the subject of public confidence?

Lembit �pik: My hon. Friend gets to the very heart of the matter. It is not merely playing with words, because what the words imply greatly influences the perceived integrity of General de Chastelain. As my hon. Friend suggests, the Minister needs to explain, perhaps in her summation, why the Prime Minister used the word information.
	It is also worth noting that, according to my recollection, Downing street backtracked to a certain extent towards the end of the week, and issued a statement that the Prime Minister's comments were an informed guess, which further confused the issue. The Prime Minister has certainly not sought to back down and admit that he over-used the phrase information when it was only an informed guess. We therefore find ourselves in this quagmire.

Kevin Brennan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the intervention of his hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) sums the matter up perfectly: he and his colleagues and Conservative Front Benchers are simply playing with words? The debate is all about semantics rather than about the real politics and the real issues that matter in Northern Ireland.

Lembit �pik: I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman and I have never questioned his genuine interest in Northern Ireland, but on this occasion he has made an error. I have been the Liberal Democrats' Northern Ireland spokesman since 1997, and one thing that I certainly have learned is that sometimes words are absolutely crucial to the meanings, which then impact on actions taken in the Province.

Kevin Brennan: rose

Lembit �pik: I would counsel the hon. Gentleman to ponder this question. If it turns out that there is an unresolved difference between what the Prime Minister seems to have said and what General de Chastelain seems to have said, does it not necessarily create instability at the heart of the decommissioning process and cause problems for those politicians in Northern Ireland who have sought to bring their sceptical colleagues along with them? On this occasion, the hon. Gentleman may be sincere in his intentions, but he could not be more wrong. It is not about semantics, but about facts.

Kevin Brennan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. If it is not about semantics and it is not simply a matter of playing with words and making a judgment about the Prime Minister's words, does the hon. Gentleman agree with Conservative Front Benchers' calling into question the integrity of the Prime Minister?

Lembit �pik: The hon. Gentleman is trying to play word games with me. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, will know that Mr. Speaker called the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford to order on several occasions because he felt that he was implying that the Prime Minister had lied. I do not want to get into a debate about whether the Prime Minister lied. However, I certainly feel misled

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that I had better make it clear that I do not believe that any hon. Member is going to use that expression.

Lembit �pik: I fully respect that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am bound to tell the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) that I am not accusing the Prime Minister of lying. It is a side debate and we could perhaps discuss it in a pub on another occasion. I want to stick to the focus of the debate. I hope that it is in order to say that I feel misled. I feel that there is an unresolved confusion between the statements of the Prime Minister and those of General de Chastelain.

Kevin Brennan: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) to say that he feels misled by the remarks that the Prime Minister made to the House?

Madam Deputy Speaker: I believe that the hon. Member is just about within the bounds of orderI put it no more strongly than that.

Lembit �pik: I am happy to be hauled up if I go beyond those bounds. Attitudinally, I have always regarded the Prime Minister's intentions with regard to the Northern Ireland peace process as honourable, and I want to emphasise that this is not an effort at character assassination of the Prime Ministerabsolutely not: it is an effort to get to the heart of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Several hon. Members: rose

Lembit �pik: I shall give way in a moment, but let me finish this point, so that we can move on from talking in detail about the Prime Minister. I do feel misled, and if I feel misled others who are involved in the peace process much more closely than I am will also feel it. The practical consequence of the problem could be observed in what the Ulster Unionist party did. My suspicion is that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) was put in a virtually impossible position. It sounded to me as though the Prime Minister was implying that he had information that made him confident, but that he was not able to share it with anyone else.
	The substantial question for the Minister is whether she can clarify the confusion once and for all[Interruption.] She says from a sedentary position that she has already clarified it, but I am not satisfied that she has. The Liberal Democrats are not putting up any candidates in Northern Ireland and I do not particularly enjoy supporting Conservative Members on their motion, but my commitment to do the right thing causes me to press the Minister to explain once and for all exactly why the Prime Minister used the word information when, later in the week, Downing street said that it was only an informed guess.

Angela Watkinson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the exact meaning of words is important in these matters, and that words such as substantial and considerable, when used in statements about the decommissioning of arms, are extremely unhelpful because they are subjective and open to wide interpretation? That led to considerable misunderstanding and unease about what had happened. How can we ever be sure that decommissioning has been complete unless the exact wording is used?

Lembit �pik: Funnily enough, having criticised the Minister, I am now going to come to the Government's defence. In my judgment, the problem is not the vagueness of the wording on decommissioning. I acknowledge that I differ from the Conservative party on that matter. My view is that if we demanded more specific statistics, the IRA would probably not participate at all.

Bill Tynan: rose

Lembit �pik: I shall give way one more time, but then I shall attempt to finish my speech.

Bill Tynan: I thank the hon. Gentleman, who, as he said, has spoken on Northern Ireland matters since 1997. He has gained a tremendous reputation for fairness in those matters, but does he not accept that it is a major mistake to be involved in discussions on the basis of the Prime Minister making one statement and General de Chastelain making another? How can the problems be resolved when both individuals are saying what they are saying at the present time?

Lembit �pik: The hon. Gentleman correctly highlights the danger of discussing weapons on the basis of a single source. We have seen the consequences of that problem in debates on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we can now see it in respect of Northern Ireland. However, there is one difference, which has already been established and which brings me back to my starting-point. General de Chastelain's integrity is not in question here. The Minister went to great lengths to reassure us that the general is telling the truth, and I believe that he is. If that side of the problem has been tidied upunless the Minister wants to change her statement, I believe that it hasit leaves an unanswered question about the behaviour of Downing street and the Prime Minister.
	Various options are open to the Prime Minister to clear the whole thing up. We may have to recognise that General de Chastelain was not the only source from whom the Prime Minister could have acquired more information. Perhaps he got it directly from Sinn Fein, perhaps from Gerry Adams, perhaps from the IRA. He may even have heard it in a pub. Perhaps he was walking through the beautiful fields of County Tyrone, saw some people digging a hole and went over to see what was going on. Perhaps he had an anonymous tip-off, possibly from the security services, or he saw satellite photographs. Perhaps he had a vision. Clearly, he acquired the information in some way.
	It would be helpful if the Prime Minister even said, I did have more information. I cannot tell you from where I got it and I accept that I am asking you to trust me because I am the Prime Minister. That would be better than the present situation, in which we have had no clarification. My appeal to the Minister is to pass on to the Prime Minister a respectful request that he tidies up whether he meant to use the word information or not.

Peter Robinson: The Prime Minister has already made it clear that he did not get the information in a vision or from the intelligence services. He specifically said in his statement that he got it after his conversation with General de Chastelain. That, therefore, puts all the pressure on him.

Lembit �pik: That is, sadly, the case, but I am willing to allow the Prime Minister the chance to display human fallibility. After all, he is not a saint, but he is a very decent guy. Even decent people make mistakes, so he could clarify the point without great cost to himself. He might suffer a little embarrassment, but he is big enough to survive that. We have rehearsed the issue enough now. If he meant to say information, from where did he get it? If he cannot tell us the source, let him at least say so. If he meant General de Chastelain, let him confirm it: if he did not, he needs to explain to all of us that General de Chastelain had nothing to do with the extra information that he claimed to have.

Alistair Carmichael: The Prime Minister's statements have not been satisfactorily explained, and he is the only person who can explain them satisfactorily. All that is needed is for the Prime Minister to come to the House and say, I made a mistake and I said more than I should have done, or The sense of what I said was wrong. If it comes to a straight choice between the Prime Minister's dignity and the integrity of the peace process, it must be made in favour of the latter.

Lembit �pik: My hon. Friend's comments speak for themselves.
	The Liberal Democrats tend to get annoyed by the phrase bipartisan agreement, because we do not feel included. When the Minister regards the Conservatives dolefully, I would remind her that the Liberal Democrats have been good friends of the Government on Northern Ireland policy. I do not make lightly the strong criticisms that I have made today, but the bipartisan agreement seems to have gone one miserable step further. It now seems to exclude everyone except Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists from the discussions that took place in Northern Ireland[Interruption.] Whatever the Minister's protestations from a sedentary position, I know that the Alliance party, the SDLP and others felt that the recent discussions were a two-party show. They feel that if they had been present they might have been able to provide sufficient counterbalance to ensure that the momentum was sustained in the negotiations. I ask the Minister not to make that same mistake again.
	To exclude pro-agreement parties, such as the Alliance, from the negotiations was foolish. Those parties could have made a positive contribution and are still willing to do so, but the Government have squandered some good will by including two parties with a collective share of less than 50 per cent. of the poll. I ask the Minister to be much more respectful towards all the people represented by the other parties, because they form a majority of the electorate in Northern Ireland.
	Our amendment makes our position clear. On this occasion, we will support the Conservatives' motion, for the reasons that have been stated, but I do not do so lightly. Northern Ireland debates often reside on the periphery of mainstream political discussions covered in the papers, but unless the question that has been raised about the information claimed by the Prime Minister is clarified, there is every reason to believe that the issue will grow and grow, to the discomfort of the Prime Minister and the distraction of all of us who are interested in supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Iain Luke: I am glad to take part in this debate, and the Opposition are within their rights to have a debate on this matter. We should discuss Northern Ireland and the minutiae of the peace process at every possible opportunity, until lasting peace is achieved to the satisfaction of this House and the people of Northern Ireland. As a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I have just returned from a visit to Northern Ireland with other members of the Committee. We had a successful and calm visit, and it was good to see the ubiquitous fly posting there. We saw plenty of fly posting in east Belfast. I am not sure whether it is illegal there, but it is contrary to a byelaw in my part of the world. However, I was glad to see such activity because it indicates that the electoral process is under way. We should do all that we can to ensure that the election campaign proceeds peacefully and positively.
	Today's debate has concentrated on what the Prime Minister said or did not say, and the contribution of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) was not helpful. He took the opportunity to attack the Prime Minister as part of the United Kingdom political campaign, rather than to do what is best for the peace process in Northern Ireland. I can understand that. Indeed, I have many questions relating to that point, such as a query about the nature of the bipartisan process. I accept that the bipartisan process has collapsed and that we need to work hard on both sides of the House to re-establish it and to set out criteria on which it will work. If we learn anything from this debate, it should be that a bipartisan approach means that all the leaders of the major parties are represented at meetings that discuss issues that may be resolved by confidential, bipartisan and private meetings, rather than on the Floor of the House.

William Cash: The hon. Gentleman said that he is a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Does he agree that it would be helpful for the Committee to clarify this issue, in the interests of the process, of the facts and of the elections, by having the Prime Minister appear before it to answer its questions in the proper environment?

Iain Luke: I am a relatively new member of the Committee, and that request should be put to the Chairman. I cannot decide what the Committee does on my own.

Tony Clarke: Given the point made by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), does my hon. Friend agree that it would have been helpful if the Opposition had not initiated a debate on Northern Ireland on the afternoon that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is meeting, thus restricting participation in the debate? Could not the hon. Gentleman have discussed that with the Chairman, who is a member of his party?

Iain Luke: We do not live in a perfect world and Northern Ireland is not a perfect issue. The Committee is very concerned by the situation in Northern Ireland and I know that the Chairman and other members have expressed concern about the fact that they cannot participate fully in this debate because of their commitments later today. I hope that the Opposition will consider such issues in future so that members of the Committee may have the opportunity of a fuller involvement, including the Chairman, who has a long history of involvement in the affairs of the Province.
	Northern Ireland is an important issue and it saddens me that we are mired in an Irish bog of political partisanship. It is hugely important to return Northern Ireland to peace, prosperity and political normality, allowing its citizens to enjoy the everyday well-being that is accepted as a right by all the other citizens of the United Kingdom. Life can be hard enough for people in the area that I represent. The poorer estates face the same problems as those in Northern Irelandillness, poor housing, poverty and crime. That is hard enough to cope with, but it is made worse by the fact that the paramilitaries control the culture, while politicians seem to be making no positive or progressive attempt to resolve the problems that people face. I can understand the despair felt by many people in Northern Ireland.
	We have a duty not to condemn the ordinary citizen in Northern Ireland to being mired in that bog. Instead of digging in deeper, we must do all that we can to pull people out and move the process forward.
	I began visiting Northern Ireland before I became a Member of Parliament. When I became a team leader and senior lecturer in further education, one of my first tasks was to go to Northern Ireland to recruit students to study at Dundee's educational institutions.

David Trimble: The hon. Gentleman must have been desperate to keep those institutions open.

Iain Luke: I was successful in that endeavour, as Dundee has a strong and healthy Irish population. I have seen a lot of progress in Northern Ireland over the past decade. Fewer people now come to Dundee to study, as they are happier to stay in the Province. The normalisation of the situation there has resulted in freedom from fear, and our hope is that that fear will be dispatched for ever.
	We should not be frightened by the peace process, which should be based on a bipartisan approach. The approach adopted by Nelson Mandela and his road to freedom is probably the best, given that reconciliation rather than retribution is the key. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) spoke about the secretive nature of paramilitary organisations. We should not push them back into their bunkers; instead, we should try to do all that we can to bring them out into the open. In the past, the approach of the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning has been a throwback to the old days of warfare and paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. We should do all that we can to encourage the commission to speak more openly about what is going on.
	At last week's Northern Ireland questions I asked that the Government recommit themselves to two specific matters in relation to establishing a lasting peace settlement and securing positive arms decommissioning. I asked them to ensure that Sinn Fein/IRA made a firm commitment to giving up warlike activity for ever, and that, under the umbrella of the IICD, the Government took steps towards making decommissioning transparent.
	People in Northern Ireland fear that arms are not being decommissioned, and I can understand why. Until it can be stated that no more arms are available for use in military activity, people will not believe that decommissioning is complete. They will not accept it until they can see it in black and white.
	There is a problem with decommissioning, although the point is not what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did or did not say. We must get away from that and recreate a bipartisan approach. I commend the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), who has done a great job despite the problems in his party. Most parties have problems, and what matters in the end is not the journey but the final result. The progress that has been made is shown by the fact that Sinn Fein as a party is becoming increasingly engaged in the political process.
	We need to achieve a positive result with decommissioning. A positive result in the political process will have been achieved when Sinn Fein Members of this House take their seats. I have made that point before. I voted against the motion allowing Sinn Fein Members to use the House's facilities until they took the oath and engaged positively in the political process. When that happens, it will underline the fact that warfare in Northern Ireland has finished.
	Sinn Fein's engagement with the political process would be positive even if it pushed for reunification with southern Ireland. That is a legitimate political goal, although its popularity in the Province is debatable. If Sinn Fein Members took their places in this House, we could debate reunification here, and that would be a sure sign of Sinn Fein's commitment to the political process. The Government extended to Sinn Fein the opportunity to use this House's facilities in the hope that that would begin the endgame in the peace process, even if the hon. Members involved did not take the offer up immediately.
	I do not want to make partisan or political points. I have visited Northern Ireland and been involved in my own community. I believe that everyone is entitled to a lead a peaceful existence. We have some way to go before that is the birthright of everyone in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said that he felt left out of the bipartisan approach. As a Back Bencher, I do too, although I suppose that I have more frequent access to Ministers than the hon. Gentleman.
	I support the Government amendment, but I hope that Ministers will go away from the debate determined to ensure that issues such as decommissioning are dealt with in a bipartisan manner. Because of their grievances, the Opposition have moved away from that goal, and I urge them to reconsider. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will take the initiative and invite the emerging Conservative leader to meet him and other major leaders to talk about what a bipartisan approach really is. We must make sure that we get the process on the road, with the support of the people.
	I accept that General de Chastelain has impeccable intentions. That is beyond question: his is a hard, long job, and we must support him in it. That means that we should not nitpick about the words used by him or by the Prime Minister. He has got something to say, and we must make sure that the senior politicians involved in the matter hear it. In that way, problems can be resolved and the process can keep moving. After 26 November, there will still be a long way to go. I hope that the situation in Northern Ireland will be much more normal at the end of the process, and that people will refrain from trying to make political points in respect of the role played by the Prime Minister in the UK context. We must ensure that, after 26 November, the First Minister is in charge of the Province, and able to make progress towards establishing the sort of civil society that people in Northern Ireland can be proud of.

David Trimble: In her opening remarks, the Minister of State referred to the party election broadcast by the Conservative party. Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of seeing it, as I travelled over for this debate last night. However, I noted that she referred to a comment in that broadcast to the effect that the Conservatives were the only national party to contest the elections in Northern Ireland.
	I have a bit of informationif I dare use that wordfor the Minister: among the candidates in the Northern Ireland election are people who are applying for membership of the Labour party. I look forward very much to those people being able, at the next election, to run under the colours that they want to run under, and not having to run under other colours. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

Jane Kennedy: For the sake of clarityand in case the right hon. Gentleman misunderstood mewhat I said was that it was the Conservative party that claimed that it was the only one of the three main parties to field candidates in the election. The Conservatives were putting that forward as something worthy of support and note.

David Trimble: I take the Minister's point, although she did not dissent from the Conservative claim. I thought that I would be the bearer of information for her, so that she could appreciate the situation more fully.
	The Government lost me when I read the first line of their amendment to today's motion. The first line of the amendment states that it
	notes the importance of confidentiality to effective decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland.
	As I said, the Government lost me with that line. I do not agree with that proposition. Furthermore, unless I am very much mistaken, there is no obligation or requirement of confidentiality in the decommissioning process at all. The legislation as enacted makes no reference to confidentiality as being required or desirable; it simply does not come into the picture.
	When we look at decommissioning schemes, which are made under the legislation, we see in the first scheme a reference to confidentiality. The relevant paragraph of that scheme, paragraph 26, states:
	The Commission shall ensure that all information received by it in relation to the decommissioning process is kept confidential and that any records maintained by the Commission are kept secure. Disclosure of information received by the commission may occur where disclosure is necessary: for reasons of public safety, to confirm the legitimate participation in the decommissioning process by those eligible to do so, to fulfil the Commission's duty to report to the two Governments.
	One notes the reference to duty to report to the Governments. I always thought that such a duty was implicit in the legislation, and it is explicit in that scheme, and I would have thought it perfectly natural for the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning to give information to the Government that was not in the public domain. I would find no reason to quarrel with that.

William Cash: Will the right hon. Gentleman go a little further down this route and say that he would believe that, in the circumstances, there was a statutory duty to report?

David Trimble: The phraseology of the scheme,
	to fulfil the Commission's duty,
	seems to imply that, but I do not want to get into an argument about that. The point that I want to develop from that paragraph is that it attaches the confidentiality to all information received by the IICD. The importance of the paragraph therefore depends on what meaning one attributes to the word received. The question then arises as to whether information that the Commission obtains by its own actions, through supervising or inspecting an act of decommissioning, is received within the meaning of paragraph 26. I think not. I make that pointthe point could be arguedsimply to say that I doubt whether, under paragraph 26, there is any duty of confidentiality on the commission with regard to decommissioning conducted under that scheme.
	I turn now to the second scheme, which was made after the conference in 2001 at Weston Park. It has been the general assumptionit is purely an assumption, and it could be wrongthat such decommissioning that has occurred by republicans so far has been under the post-Weston Park scheme, and one assumes that that is why the scheme was made after Weston Park, because that was in the context of the IRA accepting for the first time, as it did in 2000 and 2001, that it had an obligation to decommission. There is no equivalent of paragraph 26 in the second scheme. The only reference to information in the second scheme is in paragraph 5:
	The Commission may provide to a person who seeks it such information in relation to the making of arms permanently inaccessible or permanently unusable in accordance with this scheme as it considers appropriate.
	The second scheme therefore makes it absolutely clear that the commission may give such information about what has happened as it considers appropriate. As I suspectalthough, as I say, I might be wrongthat the actual decommissioning is done under that scheme, it is clear on that basis that there is no obligation to confidentiality on the IICD at all.
	The question then arises: from where does the issue come? My understandingI am open to be correctedis that the question of confidentiality arose only in the circumstances leading to the first act of decommissioning. What I think happened on that occasion was that republicans said to the IICD that they would decommission only if the IICD agreed to keep all the details confidential. I suspect that the reason why republicans said that to the IICD was that they were very worried about the effects within their own ranks if it was known that they were engaged in substantial decommissioning of their weapons. That supposition is reinforced by the fact that republicans have told their members a set of fairy tales about what has happened and what has not happened. One picks up comments from time to time from various sources as to what rank-and-file republicans have been told on that, and if Members wish to explore that matter further, I refer them to some of the articles in, for example, a dissident republican magazine called The Blanket, which details some of the rumours that have been put about. I mention that simply to make the point that the republican movement is nervous about the impact of decommissioning within its own ranks.
	At the time that that first decommissioning occurred, clearly, we welcomed the decommissioning act, because it was something that we were told would never, ever happen, and the mere fact that it had happened and that the republican slogan Not a bullet, not an ounce had been discarded was significant. Even if it had only been a bullet or an ounce, it would have been significant and worth welcoming on that basis. In terms of the first event, therefore, the quantities and the methodology were of secondary importance to the fact that it happened. None the less, we expressed to the general our doubts at the time as to the wisdom of him accepting or imposing on himself this obligation of confidentiality. As it turned out, our doubts were well-founded.
	When the second act of decommissioning occurred, its impact on the public, although I believed, and still believe, that it was substantial as well as significant, was nil, for exactly the reasons given by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke) in his comments. People believe what they see, and what they know about, and are sceptical of those things that are referred to only in the most general of terms. A considerable degree of scepticism therefore existed with regard to decommissioning. If my supposition as to what happened with regard to confidentiality is right, I can understand what the IICD was doing. Clearly, it wanted more than one act of decommissioning, and it believed that by agreeing to confidentiality it was making possible a process that would lead to subsequent onesI understand that.
	The point that I would makeand have madeto the IICD is that it underestimates its influence and the strength of its position. We are now in a situation in which those same republicans who, three years ago, were brought to the issue of decommissioning extremely reluctantly and nervously now realise that it is necessary for them to do it, and they want to do it to advance their political project. Their approach to decommissioning is not the same as it was three years ago, so the IICD's approach does not have to be the same either. It would be entirely open to the IICD in the present circumstances to say to republicans, Look, we agreed to confidentiality then, but when you promised to decommissionthis is a significant point to bear in mindyou said that you would do it in a way to maximise public confidence. Building on that, it is perfectly open to the commission to say to republicans that to build public confidence now it must be done in a transparent way, and that it will not co-operate further in secret decommissioning. If it did that, it would be effective.
	We should be moving into open, transparent decommissioning to build confidence. Ultimately, the decommissioning process is all about a confidence-building measure. The point has been made repeatedly over the last few years that people can acquire new weapons and that decommissioning is not important. It is important in terms of getting rid of weaponry that otherwise might fall into the wrong hands or be used to harm persons, but its importance beyond that is in building confidence that people have given up violence permanently and are now committed completely and unambiguously to political and only political means. As a confidence-building measure, therefore, it is of no value if it does not create confidence.
	We have made that point repeatedly to republicans this year. We did so in the discussions that took place in the abortive attempts to advance matters in April and we have done so again in the past couple of months. On more than one occasion, I said to the republican movement, If you are thinking of another secret decommissioning event, forget it. You'll only be throwing the guns away. I said it as starkly as that so that there would be no misunderstanding at all about the need for transparency on this occasion.
	Republicans agreed that there would be greater transparencythat was the term they used. Hon. Members and citizens of Northern Ireland will have heard Martin McGuinness's radio interview on the BBC more than a month or so ago in which he said that he accepted the points that had been made with regard to greater transparency and that he thought that the points that had been raised with him could be met. Therefore, there was a clear expectation that there would be greater transparency, and I suppose republicans might now claim that there were a few extra words in de Chastelain's report. However, to think that those words amounted to greater transparency is simply plain daft.
	Republicans have done themselves and their credibility huge damage by not following through with greater transparency, particularly as we now havethanks to General de Chastelain's verbal slip at the Hillsborough press conferencethe confirmation that the IRA's contact person with the de Chastelain commission is Martin McGuinness. The person who agreed that there was an issue and thought that it could be dealt with is clearly also the person who said to de Chastelain, No, you cannot say any more. The republican leadership will have to sort out that conflict.
	The contradiction between what Mr. McGuinness said to us and the public in Northern Ireland and what we must suppose he said to the IICD is a much greater contradiction than the one we are debating today. I shall come to that latter contradiction later. However, I must underline the fact that, in the background, is something that in terms of confidence, trust and advancing the process is hugely more important. Republicans and Mr. McGuinness will have to face up to that issue and, at this time, speak clearly and honestly and stick to the position that he sets out and not say one thing to us and a different thing to the IICD. That matter has to be resolved.
	For the avoidance of doubtin case anyone thinks that the omission of this point is significantI must also say that, as well as greater transparency, it is just as vital to us that it is clear that decommissioning is now an act of completion. It should therefore be not just another few steps along a process, but a situation in which the completion of that process is clearly there before us in the immediate future. That is just as important.
	I have dealt with the issue of confidentiality, because it is hugely important that the House realises that there is no requirement for confidentiality and that it is undesirable in terms of creating public confidence. We should have gone long past any prudential argument with regard to that. Until we do, we shall face considerable difficulties.
	I now want to deal briefly with a point that is contained in the motion. Hon. Members have said that there is a certain amount of confusion between what the Prime Minister and General de Chastelain said. There is confusion, but there is no absolutely necessary contradiction between what has been said. However, that all comes down to the question of what we mean by the word information and whether information can include the sort of comments made by Andy Sens in the press conference. We may find that one party is using the word information precisely and that the other is using it in a loose sense.
	We are all familiar with occasions when the Prime Minister, in his enthusiasm, has used words somewhat loosely and sometimes made commitments without taking full advice and without fully appreciating what he was making commitments to. That is precisely how the Government got themselves into a mess with regard to fugitives from justice, which other people call on-the-runs. The Prime Minister made commitments without precisely understanding what he was doing. I am not suggesting that that is what happened in this case, but it has happened occasionally.

Alistair Carmichael: I commend the right hon. Gentleman on his very fair analysis on the point of confusion. He is absolutely right. However, does he not agree that the person who could resolve the confusion is the Prime Minister himself? If he continues to fail to do so, that could be damaging to the whole process.

David Trimble: I understand that point. As the hon. Gentleman knows, my concern is for the public of Northern Ireland, who are confused. Even if that confusion were mistaken and even if the public did not fully appreciate what had been said, the fact that the public are confused is a good reason why the confusion should be clarified. To that extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman's comments. However, I am slightly uneasy because, as the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) pointed out, information could have been received from a whole variety of sources, and that is another factor. I know that the Prime Minister said that he had received the information from the commission, but we are on the verge of sensitive issues. Therefore, a degree of care is clearly necessary.
	Although I agree that there is a degree of confusion between the general and the Prime Minister, the best way of resolving that is to deal with the much more important issue of transparency. If full details of what had been decommissioned had been coming into the public domain now and if an inventory had indicated what had been decommissioned, I do not think that anyone would have been scratching their head and wondering what the general or the Prime Minister actually meant. That is not an insignificant matter in itself, but the best way to resolve it is by going the whole hog and getting proper transparency on decommissioning. People would then be able to see whether it was significant.
	The Minister said that the Government believe in the greatest possible transparency, and I hope that they will be making that point to the IICD and pointing out the need for it. The IICD is the creature of the Government; it reports to them and it is there to see that Government policy, as it were, is carried through successfully. I am therefore quite sure that the IICD would pay close attention to the advice that it receives from the Government and I hope that they will advise it along the lines that I have indicated.
	I shall illustrate why I think we need greater information. I have mentioned public confidence and it is quite clear that there will not be public confidence until there is precise information. That is not just a matter of the public being ignorant or adopting an unreasonable attitude. Andy Sens said that the material decommissioned could have caused death and destruction on a huge scale had it been used. I do not demur from that. I am sure that he would not say that if he were not quite satisfied that it was true. However, let us suppose, for example, that what had been decommissioned was a series of home-made IRA mortars that had been manufactured for the purpose of decommissioning. Yes, Mr. Sens's comment would be true, but we would take quite a different attitude to whether the decommissioning was significant if what had been decommissioned had been manufactured in the weeks and months beforehand.
	If I applied my mind to it, I could perhaps find other reasons to explain why substantial decommissioning would not build confidence in a commitment to exclusively peaceful means. Because of the way in which things might be arranged, acts of decommissioning will not be significant in building public confidence until they are sufficiently transparent to enable the public to be confident that people have crossed the Rubicon and left behind violence and committed themselves in the future to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. This example shows just how important it is to have full information on these matters.
	I conclude with a comment, although hon. Members must not think that it is just an afterthought, because it is highly important. We also need to see decommissioning from loyalist paramilitary organisations. Although there was a small token act of decommissioning by the Loyalist Volunteer Force many years ago, the mainstream loyalist paramilitary organisations need to address the issue. They should not sit back and wait, because as and when people become aware of the extent to which republicans have decommissioned, the anomaly of loyalists' failure to act will become more glaring and the pressure on them to make progress will consequently increase. There is not the same political pressure on those groups, but I hope that the community at large and the Government and their agencies are putting considerable pressure on them. I simply underline the need for such decommissioning to happen, too.

Bill Tynan: I thought at the beginning of the debate that it was going to be bad-natured and bad-tempered, because of the comments emanating from those on the official Opposition Front Bench. I am delighted that the debate has become realistic and that hon. Members have covered issues that need to be covered. During Question Time today, the Prime Minister told us what was happening in Iraq and paid tribute to a young soldier who lost his life. The soon-to-be former leader of the Conservative party joined in those commiserations with the soldier's family. The fact that we are not talking about Northern Ireland and the peace process but navel gazing to find out what divides us, rather than unites us, epitomises our debates on Northern Ireland.
	It is interesting that there are three Scots in the Chamber. That is because we have an affinity with Northern Ireland, we recognise the problems that it has faced over many years and we have been party to finding a solution over those years. However, it is not so long since there was loss of life in Northern Ireland. Before I became a Member, I used to watch television with horror as it showed the bombings and murders that took place, and I wondered why we could not reach a consensus on Northern Ireland. The debate has shown us that the peace process has moved forward a long way. It has not moved forward enough to solve the problems, but there has been a real leap forward. I should have thought that it would be better today for us to discuss how to take the process further.
	It is a daunting task to follow the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble). He made arguments for taking the peace process forward and told us what was necessary to achieve that. Transparency on decommissioning in Northern Ireland is absolutely essential and we will have to face that fact if we are to have lasting peace there. I hope that we can unite to concentrate our minds on that, so that all parties in the House can move forward in that direction.
	The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) said that he supported bipartisanship. I accept that. He said that responsible support for policies on Northern Ireland was important, and I accept that completely. However, he then spoke about deception and cover-ups. He gave an example of a doctor who had not examined a patient but said that he had, and compared that to the Prime Minister's actions. That is the wrong way to conduct a debate on Northern Ireland at this time.
	The Prime Minister has made his position clear. Opposition Members say that they do not trust the Prime Minister but that they trust de Chastelain. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann spoke about how it is possible for the English language to be used so that information may be conveyed and understandings may be drawn from that, and we can all recognise that.

Lembit �pik: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the problem goes wider than Northern Ireland? The debate is especially significant because if the Prime Minister cannot clear up this piece of evidence, that has an effect on other questions such as those about Iraq. The answers that we hear today will have a bearing on such questions because we will find out the Prime Minister's modus operandi. The questions need to be cleared up because otherwise knock-on suspicions about other aspects of the Government's work will be created.

Bill Tynan: If something is to be cleared up, some confusion must exist. I do not think that there is confusion. The Prime Minister has made a statement and I do not think that there is any argument about what he said or about General de Chastelain's comments that he gave full information at his press conference. If one starts with a premise that confusion exists, it must be resolved, but if there is no confusion, there is no need to resolve it.

Alistair Carmichael: May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the words of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble)? He said that there clearly was confusion on the streets of Northern Ireland. We cannot blame people in such circumstances, and the Prime Minister could easily clear up that confusion.

Bill Tynan: I interpreted the comments made by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann about confusion as meaning that we did not have transparency in the decommissioning process and that people were not aware of what had been decommissioned. I thought that he meant that given those circumstances, it was important for the people of Northern Ireland to know exactly the position to which the IRA had moved on the decommissioning process. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) has obviously decided to have his own conversation on the other side of the Chamber. That is my interpretation, and I am not asking for clarification of it from the right hon. Member for Upper Bann.

Martin Smyth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I have not been able to stay in the Chamber throughout the debate, owing to other business connected with the House. I understand that one of the difficulties surfaced yesterday in the court in Londonderry. The original interlocutor with General de Chastelain, Martin McGuinness, refused to answer certain questions because of an IRA honour code. Is it possible that the arrangements made by Martin McGuinness are casting a long shadow over the overall process, meaning that there is no transparency? There can be no transparency until folk go for the truth rather than the IRA honour code.

Bill Tynan: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands why I shall leave that question hanging in the air. I do not want to intrude on what has been said by Martin McGuinness or any other Northern Ireland politician who is not in the Chamber.
	Points have been made about the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. I am a member of the Committee, although I was not in Belfast over the past two days because I had business in the House. It is unfortunate that this debate is being held on a day during which the Committee is sitting. It is also regrettable that the debate is being held during the run-up to the elections in Northern Ireland on 26 November. Northern Ireland Members could have used their time better in campaigning for their points of view, so that they could retain seats in Northern Ireland.
	Neither the motion nor the amendment says, at any point, that we welcome decommissioning and the fact that the Assembly will be restored after 26 November. We need constructive cross-party support for a continuing peace process. It is vital that we join together. Once the debate is over, I hope that we can put it behind us and find solutions in Northern Ireland based on the transparency that is required to give people confidence in the process. We must remember that the people of Northern Ireland are the important consideration, not the political parties that make capital out of the misery in Northern Ireland. It is important that we move forward with a consensus. I hope that we all learn lessons from the debate.

Richard Shepherd: A former Member of the House, long since retired and departed, was charged with a public disorder offence when a student at Oxford and appeared in front of the magistrates. When the magistrate leant over and said How do you plead?, he said Not guilty. The magistrate said So you're saying the police are lying?, to which, with the full confidence that we can marshal only when we are university students, the student addressed the magistrate and said, Certainly not. You should well know there are five possibilities: I am lying; the policeman is lying; I am genuinely mistaken; the policeman is genuinely mistaken; or, finally, that the two accounts, though seemingly contradictory, can be reconciled. The magistrate was wise in those matters. He said, Guilty. Ten shillings.
	On the information in front of us, I disagree with the hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan). There is a great difficulty in reconciling the two accounts. That has been the substance of the Opposition's charge on a matter that is of clear importance to Northern Ireland, but is also of great importance to the integrity of our proceedings. That is my first concern. Everything that now happens is questioned. There has to be authority in statements that are given on the Floor of the House of Commons. It would have been simple for the Prime Minister to put beyond doubt the actual situation. The ominous silence on that gives rise to grave suspicions. I do not wish to be derogatory about the Minister who is given the task of responding to the debate, but if she can address none of the central issues raised by every hon. Member who has spoken from the Opposition Benches, it will only act to underline the wider process in respect of the authority of what the Government say. This is an important debate for Northern Ireland, the House and, therefore, the people whom we represent.
	A while ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) took a courageous decisionI say that easily because I joined him in his decisionto vote against the then Government's conclusions on the Scott inquiry. Central to that were accounts of conduct to the House. In fact, Sir Richard Scott commented that Ministers had failed in their constitutional duty. He relied on the rules and guidance to Ministers that they should be frank, open and truthful to the House. We voted in support of that proposition. In a sense, that is the source of opposition and what we expect.
	A great journalist, Richard Norton Taylor, wrote perhaps the most distinguished book on the subject, called Truth is a Difficult Concept. When the judge asked the civil servant who had been the Ministry of Defence's spokesman during the Falklands war for his evidence, the civil servant said, Ah. Truth is a very difficult concept. That is what the public now think. That is what I think. The Government's attachment to truth is now so questioned that we cannot have confidence, not just in Northern Ireland matters, but in a much wider sphere. This country was committed to war, no less. That had to be on the basis of the attestation of the only man who could know about the dangers facing us. If that is questioned, as it is now, we are in deep trouble. As it stands, I do not think that there is a person in my constituency who can reconcile the Prime Minister's statements.

Alistair Carmichael: It was not my intention to contribute, but I feel compelled to do so. It pains me to say that some of the opening speeches did not show the House at its best. We are, perhaps, ill-served by the terms of the Conservative motion, although that is not necessarily a criticism of the Conservative Front-Bench team. Mr. Speaker told the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) that his speech would have been more appropriate under the terms of a confidence motion. In that, as in all things, Mr. Speaker was correct. However, such a motion is the nuclear option and I understand why the Conservative party chose not to pursue that route. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the Prime Minister has ensured that the nuclear option is the only one left to the official Opposition and others who oppose the Government.
	I can improve little on the speech of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), whom I have the pleasure to follow. He was clear and succinct. The point is simple: the words that were used by the Prime Minister have created confusion. That confusion is damaging and needs to be cleared up. I heard what the Minister said today and have read what she said in the House before. It pains me as an admirer of the right hon. Lady that she did not acquit herself, or serve the House, well.
	Only the Prime Minister can clear up the confusion. He said previously in the House that he had information. The Minister said that he had a sense of the situation. With all due respect, those are different things. This is not semantics. Our ancestors had a sense that the world was flat. We now have information to prove that it is not. We have danced around the L word, as I shall call it in the interests of parliamentary language. I do not believe that the Prime Minister lied. He may have been a victim of some confusion in his mind in a way that he has been when asked about his favourite food or football team, but those are different and less serious matters. He may have used language that he should not have used. That has clearly led to confusion. I say in passing, I only have a sense that that is the case; I have no information to suggest that it is.

Quentin Davies: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the difference between the force of the words sense and information. Does he agree, however, that it is a matter not only of different words and the different meanings they convey, but of the assurance that was based on them? An assurance based on a sense of something carries a different force from an assurance based on information about something. It was the latter assurance that the Prime Minister gave the House and the British public.

Alistair Carmichael: Yes, I broadly agree with the hon. Gentleman's point, which is the same as I explored in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble). He made the important point, of which we in this House must not lose sight, that there is confusion among the general public, on the streets of Northern Ireland. Confusion within the House is no great novelty and is of no massive import; the place where the integrity of the peace process is at its most important is on the streets of Northern Ireland, which is why the confusion must be cleared up.

Iain Luke: The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) was making the point that confusion and uncertainty arise less around the process itself, which people accept is under way and there has been significant decommissioning, than around the issue of completion. How do we know that all the weapons have been handed over and thrown away if we do not have at the end of the process completion that is transparent and clear? That is the question we are all asking.

Alistair Carmichael: I commend the hon. Gentleman on a brave attempt, but it is the same one as his hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) made. When the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke) reads the Official Report tomorrow, he will realise that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann made his comments in the context of a discussion of the Prime Minister's wordsin fact he stated clearly that the issue that he was debating during that passage of his speech was the confusion in the Prime Minister's terminology. The right hon. Gentleman rightly devoted a greater part of his speech to the broad issue of transparency, but the Hansard report will show that that was the case.
	The Minister of State, making the Government's case, said that the debate about terminology was an irrelevance. I do not think that that is trueconfusion in the mind of the public can never be an irrelevancebut even if it is, it is an irrelevance that is having an effect and will not go away, an irrelevance that has given rise to doubt, which will snowball into disbelief if left unresolved. It is not often said that the House is a forgiving place, but I believe that if the Prime Minister came to the House and gave an explanation, in view of the prize to be wonthe peace process in Northern Irelandthe House would be forgiving toward the Prime Minister. In the absence of that, the streets of Northern Ireland will be much less forgiving.
	We are dealing with a symptom of a far more profound malaise: the difficulties attached to the massive investment of political capital in the concept of decommissioning. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann spoke of the scepticism among the people, saying that people do not necessarily believe what they hear, but they do believe what they see. As long as they hear about decommissioning but continue to see acts of paramilitary beatings on their streets, the scepticism of the people of Northern Ireland will be entirely understandable and justifiable.
	Others have spoken of the need for transparency. I agree with them up to a point. It is desirableindeed, essentialto maximise the transparency of the decommissioning process; however, we cannot hide from the fact that the very nature of the act of decommissioning means that it will always be opaque to a degree, or that to seek total transparency in decommissioning is to set ourselves up for failure. I say that as one who has always taken the view that decommissioning is something of a red herring in the overall process, and that what was always necessary is the sort of statement that we have had in recent days from the IRA.
	Much has been said about bipartisanshipor, as we on the Liberal Democrat Benches see it, multilateral support for the peace process. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik), let me make it clear that we shall continue to support the peace process. However, unless the confusion created by the Prime Minister is resolved, that process will remain damaged, and the damage will have been caused unnecessarily. That is to be deplored, and I believe passionately that it must be urgently remedied.

Peter Robinson: I well understand why Government Members seek to dilute the importance of this debate, but this debate goes to the heart of a crucial matter in British politics as a whole: the extent to which we are entitled to trust the Prime Minister.
	The central issue of the debate relates to decommissioning. Newspapers and others have made attempts to quantify what has to be decommissioned in Northern Ireland. I shall read out a list that was prepared by Jane's Intelligence Review, much of which was repeated in the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Irish Times, and Magill Magazine, which indicates the best estimate of what has to be decommissioned, about which the Prime Minister and General de Chastelain were speaking.
	It is believed that the Provisional IRA still holds 6,000 lb of Semtex explosive, 588 AKM assault rifles, 400 other assorted rifles, 10 general-purpose machine guns, 17 DShK heavy machine guns, three 0.50-calibre heavy machine guns, nine SAM-7 missiles, 46 RPG-7 missiles, 11 RPG-7 launchers, seven flamethrowers, 115 hand grenades, 600 handguns, 40 machine guns, 31 shotguns and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition. That list does not start to take into account the IRA's capacity to manufacture its own explosives and ordnance. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) referred to home-made mortars, and we know of the IRA's use of fertiliser to make explosives. Therefore, when a right hon. or hon. Member says in the House that at least there seems to be no argument but that what was put beyond usewhatever that term meanswas substantial, little definition is provided by the word substantial. As General de Chastelain said to me, One man's substantial may well be another man's insignificant. In reality, without an inventory of what has been put beyond use and the way in which it has been put beyond use, the word substantial holds little meaning for any of us.
	Many speakers have expressed the wish for the process to have been more transparent, but it was this House that passed the legislationthis House that refused to make the process more transparent, even though my colleagues and I asked for it to be more transparent. Indeed, we were vilified for doing so. I remember the right hon. Member for Upper Bann, who is now a great fan of transparency, telling us in the past that we should trust General de Chastelain. The right hon. Gentleman asked, did we not believe that eminent general when he said that items had been decommissioned? Now, the right hon. Gentleman himself does not trust the general sufficiently to leave it to the general's word alone. He now requires a transparency that on earlier occasions we asked for, but he did not.
	Of course there should be transparency. I even argue with the term decommissioning. To me, decommissioning is either a voluntary or a forced act of handing over weapons to be destroyed. The IRA is trading weapons for concessions, which is something very different from decommissioning.
	There was a carefully laid plan and there were several steps in the choreography. The first step was that early in the morning the Prime Minister would announce that there was to be an Assembly election. In response to that, Gerry Adams was to appear on our televisions to use some carefully crafted language to tell us that the war was over. We were then to have an IRA endorsement of Adams's statement, followed by General de Chastelain's statement, which was to be followed by the right hon. Member for Upper Bann telling us that he would behave himself in future and would not bring down the institutions if the IRA happened to carry out some terrorist activity. All that was to be followed by a statement from the two Prime Ministers. They were to outline the price that had to be paid for the IRA's endorsement of the process. That price was to be the giving of a free ticket to on-the-run terrorists. It was to be paid by removal of security installations from the border and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. It was to be paid also in that in two years policing and justice powers would be devolved to Northern Ireland to allow people such as Gerry Kelly, a convicted Old Bailey bomber, to become the Minister with responsibility for policing and justice. No doubt he would be the IRA's choice for the post of our justice spokesman.
	The Prime Minister played his part and called the election. Mr. Adams appeared on our television screens and with contorted language made it clear that the process would be conditional on the Belfast agreement's being implemented in the way that the IRA wanted. He made it clear also that further implementation was required. That was endorsed, not surprisingly, by the IRA as it was conditional.
	It was then that the general took the stage. He was working within the remit given to him by the House, by the Government and by their partner, the Government in the Irish Republic. He was acting within the terms of the arrangement that he had with the organisation with which he was dealing. The result was that he did not give the detail that the public in Northern Ireland wanted. I suspect that if he had given the detail the public in Northern Ireland would not have been satisfied. The sense that I have, to use a word that has already been expressed in the Chamber, after having met the general is that only a small proportion of the weaponry has been destroyed.

Martin Smyth: I have been listening with care to the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is it not a question of trust also, and the IRA showed that it did not trust the Prime Minister, because it held the general incommunicado? As a result, the decommissioning did not take place on the Monday. Instead, it took place after a statement had been made by the Prime Minister on the Tuesday morning.

Peter Robinson: I touched on that matter with the general. I think that logistically he had to make himself available somewhere in the Republic of Ireland before the event occurred. I assume that he was held by agreement by the Provisional IRA. It shows the tawdry manner in which the entire process has been undertaken. A covert operation was taking place and the general was put in that position.
	As for the issue of substance, I outlined to the general during our meeting with him what amounted to 1 per cent. of the intelligence guesstimate of the IRA's stockpile of weapons. Actually it was slightly less than 1 per cent. of it. I asked him whether he considered that to be substantial, and of course he did. If the IRA still holds 99 per cent. or even a percentage less than that of the weaponry that it had, we can set against that the remarks that have been made by Andrew Sens that the IRA had handed over weaponry that could have caused death and destruction on a huge scale. I asked whether what the IRA still retains could cause death and destruction on a huge scale, and of course the answer was yes. Let us not get the idea that the IRA has suddenly handed over its weaponry and that it is just a matter of someone publishing the inventory so that we might know the truth.
	According to reports from those who were standing outside Cunningham house, the headquarters of the Ulster Unionist party, as the general was on his feet, they were beating the walls in anger that they were not getting the detail that they required. If the community in Northern Ireland is confused about anything, it is about how the leader of the UUP could have 15 meetings with the leadership of Sinn Fein-IRA. One of those meetings lasted for between 12 and 14 hours. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were not tied down to the detail of what General de Chastelain would be allowed to say. That is bewildering. It is the most unbelievable folly that star negotiators in the UUP could sit for hour after hour working out all the choreography in the greatest detail, handing over statements one to the other, and not bother to ask what the general would be allowed to say.
	The requirements for greater visibility and how the IRA is saying one thing and doing another have little meaning in the community in Northern Ireland. That community just gasped in amazement at the breathtaking incompetence of the leader of the UUP and his fellow negotiators.
	For my part, I viewed the Hillsborough press conference and the exchanges that followed it as being of no advantage. I have a transcript of what the Prime Minister said at the press conference. He said:
	It is deeply frustrating for this reason that obviously we are both privy as the two Governments to what the details
	not just information, and not the sense of it
	of the decommissioning were and I think it is, well it is more than a little frustrating frankly they are not able to be put out into the public domain where people can see them and where opinion and particularly unionist opinion here can make an assessment.
	Nick Robinson of ITNno relationintervened. He asked:
	Are you saying that if people knew what you know about what the IRA have done in terms of decommissioning, they would have the confidence, and why can't we know what you know, is it because the IRA won't let us know, they won't give permission or is it because the general won't say?
	The Prime Minister responded:
	Well that is a very good point and let me explain it. Yes I believe if people knew the information that we have been told then yes they would have been satisfied.
	He went on to say:
	It would be more than faintly ludicrous if we were in a situation where a substantial act of decommissioning had taken place, where the details
	again, the details
	are known by the two Governments and by the body in charge of the decommissioning but the public don't know.
	That is not a sense of it, not an informed guess and not a vision that he had somewhere on the road to wherever, but the details given to him by the general. The Prime Minister added:
	We do know a certain amount of the particulars, yes and those are important.
	When we heard those words I knew immediately that the Prime Minister was bluffing. I knew that because on several previous occasions when I met General de Chastelain he made it abundantly clear that the rules under which he was operating were that he would give only the written reports to the Governments and such general descriptive terms as he would give us, but would not give them the detailthe inventoryuntil the process of decommissioning had been completed. He had made that clear on the two previous occasions when we met him, and on the occasion to which I am referring he made it clear once again. The Prime Minister was attempting to convey the impression to the people of Northern Ireland, and particularly the Unionist community, that he had the detail of what had been decommissioned, and that if only they knew what he knew they would be satisfied that a major and substantial act had taken place.

William Cash: Is the hon. Gentleman certain that, despite the wording in the enactments on arms and explosives, the matters in question could in fact extend to other matriel that could be of great danger to the public?

Peter Robinson: The general, in his press conference, gave certain headings for categorising the various items that had been put beyond use. There is extensive weaponry in each of those categories which, as the commissioner Andrew Sens said, could lead to massive destruction and death in Northern Ireland. We are dealing with weapons that have killed thousands and maimed tens of thousands of people in Northern Ireland. This is not a semantic exercise. We are not just dealing with the niceties of the English languagewe are dealing with weapons of death that have caused death and destruction in Northern Ireland. This is a serious matter, and if the Opposition had not tabled their motion, they would have been derelict in their duty to the community in the United Kingdom as a whole.
	In a meeting with General de Chastelain, the leader of my party, my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), other colleagues and I spoke with him for more than an hour and 10 minuteslonger, incidentally, than the time that the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach and the general spent together. The Prime Minister therefore had no time advantage to extract information. The extract from our meeting on our website at www.dup.org.uk gives a contemporaneous note of the issues that were raised, and shows that we dealt rapidly with all the necessary points and, I suspect, in much more detail than the Prime Minister did in the time at his disposal.
	When we made our contemporaneous note available, the Prime Minister's spokesman released a statement. Asked for a reaction on the Democratic Unionist party's assertion that General de Chastelain had told it that the British and Irish Governments did not have any information about the act of decommissioning further to that which was already in the public domain, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, according to a report, pointed out that the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach had spoken to General de Chastelain for well over an hourless than the time that we spent with the general. According to the report, the spokesman said:
	The details of the discussions, as you would expect, were confidential. That said, the Prime Minister had told journalists . . . that although he might not know all the details about the act of decommissioning, he still had a better idea about it than the public.
	One can immediately see that, from the starting point of knowing all the detailsand if only the public knew what the Prime Minister knewthe backtracking is beginning. Now the Prime Minister does not know all the details, but knows sufficient to have a better idea than the public. The weasel words from Downing street continued, but did not stop the public in Northern Ireland questioning the issue and did not stop the press probing it. When pressed overnight, Downing street was forced to make a further statement. A report said:
	Government officials said that Mr Blair had been offering an 'educated guess' and that confidentiality had not been breached.
	If the Prime Minister had said, If you knew what my educated guess was, you would be satisfied, that statement might be believable. However, that was not what he said. Pointing to the detail available to him, he said: If you knew what I knew, then you would be satisfied. We were told more about the educated guess by the Downing street spokesperson, who, according to a report, said that
	it was possible to imagine a conversation in which the kind of thing which Commissioner Sens had been sayingabout the damage potential of what was destroyedwould have allowed an 'educated guess' or an 'informed judgment' which amounted to knowledge.
	That represents further backtracking on the Prime Minister's initial statement.
	Were the public misled? I suspect that some people over here may have been, but I do not believe that the public in Northern Ireland were misled by the Prime Minister, not because he did not attempt to mislead them, but because they have been caught by him before. He came to Northern Ireland at the time of the referendum. There was a 20 ft by 10 ft hoarding carrying five pledges to the people of Northern Ireland, and he got out his marker to sign it personally in the presence of the press and the television cameras. There were promises that there would never be anybody from Sinn Fein-IRA in government until violence was given up for good. Since then, we have had Colombia and Florida, as well as murders, shootings and beatings. One of the other pledges was that the prisoners would not get out until decommissioning began and violence was given up for goodthat was another broken pledge. I do not believe that the people of Northern Ireland were going to be succoured by what the Prime Minister said, but there can be no doubt that he attempted to embellish the facts so that he could substitute them for information that was not available to him or the general public.
	The best that can be said for the Prime Minister in the circumstances is that the events were so choreographed that they resembled a west end stage production. He lost his grip on reality and allowed his stage character to replace facts with lines that better fitted the intended plot but departed dramatically from reality and left the truth lingering far behind. It was a deliberate attempt by the Prime Minister to bluff the public and convey the impression that he had information which, if it was in the public domain, would have an altogether different bearing on people's understanding of what had just taken place.
	Our debate has given the Government the opportunity to do one of two thingseither to make the Prime Minister's boasts stand up and show that he had the details, so the issue could be passed on to the general, or to retract them. When the Minister opened the debate, she did neither, and the public will reach their own conclusions.

Andrew MacKay: May I gently make an important parliamentary point to the Minister of State, the right hon Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) and the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela Smith), and urge them to take it on board? The Opposition strongly support the Belfast agreement, and have done so from day one, but we must always reserve the right, as I did when I was shadow Secretary of State, to speak out when we think that something is wrong, as that is essential to our parliamentary democracy.
	I have been distressed because at times the Government give the impression that if my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) and other Front-Bench spokesmen disagree with Government policy or suggest that something is wrong, they are behaving incorrectly. The correct way for an Opposition to behave is to point out when something has gone wrong. We try very hard indeed to ensure that there is a bipartisan policy, but that does not override the Opposition's legitimate duties, and I hope that the Government accept that. It is a bit strange to talk to the noisier Government Members about a bipartisan policy when Members such as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who were in Parliament in the 1980s and the mid 1990s, will remember Labour Members voting against the renewal of the prevention of terrorism orders year after year. When the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) took over as Leader of the Opposition and sacked his hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) as shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Labour moved to a position of abstention. That was a step in the right direction, but it was hardly bipartisan.
	I make no criticism of the Labour Opposition of those days for reaching a judgment, which I certainly did not share, that the prevention of terrorism orders should not be renewed and, later, for being doubtful about them and abstaining from voting. They should treat us in an equally adult way, but that that has not happened, especially in today's debate. It certainly did not happen when my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford asked an urgent question last week, which is a great pity.
	I should like briefly to speak to the motion, which I strongly support. I put it to the Minister that trust is essential in taking the process forward. Without trust, no progress will be made. We all know that trust is a precious commodity that is easily lost and hard to regain. After the Belfast agreement, I campaigned for a yes vote in the referendum in the Province with my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who was then Leader of the Opposition, on the very day when the Prime Minister gave his handwritten pledges at the Balmoral show ground. Those pledges were impressive at the time, as they answered virtually every legitimate concern of the Unionist community. They allowed us as an Opposition to support the agreement fully and urge people to vote yes. As the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) saidI shall not repeat his comments, which were accurateall too many of those handwritten pledges have since fallen by the wayside. That hardly helps trust and confidence in the Province and it has led to many of the problems that we have subsequently faced.
	That makes it all the worse that, after the latest talks collapsed because of the lack of transparency in decommissioning, the Prime Minister should say at the Dispatch Box in Question Time, If you knew what I've been told privately, you would be very happy that there had been ample decommissioning. It has been confirmed that that is not true. It gives me no comfort to be standing here and telling the House that the Prime Minister said something that has turned out not to be true, but I have to say it, because General de Chastelain has confirmed it in conversations with a number of people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford and Mr. Robert McCartney, and in open talks with the Democratic Unionist party. Again, the trust of the British people and, much more importantly and specifically, people living in the Province, has been shattered.
	The process will not now move forward until after the Assembly elections later this month, but there will be no progress whatever if there is no trust in what the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and other Ministers are saying. Equally, Unionist politicians and their supporters in the Province will not be prepared to enter a power-sharing coalition and Executive after the Assembly elections unless there is very substantial decommissioning. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) that decommissioning must be substantial among not only republican paramilitaries, but so-called loyalist paramilitaries. The Opposition have always stressed that those two things run in parallel. We will know that decommissioning is happening only if we can see it happening.
	There might have been a case for transparency in the early days; indeed, there probably was one, and we supported the regulations that ensured initial transparency. However, I would have thought that it was plain to everybody, including General de Chastelain and, more importantly, elected Ministers responsible for Northern Ireland, that power sharing could resume only if the new act of decommissioning was absolutely transparent and everybody could see what had been decommissioned. If there had been a substantial act of decommissioning, as I hope and as the Prime Minister led me to believe at the Dispatch Box, I would have urged all Unionist Members and all political parties in the Province to join a power-sharing Executive after the Assembly elections, but I cannot do so at the moment, because I have no more idea than you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, of just how extensive that decommissioning was.
	There is one aspect that I fail to understand, and Ministers have not given me an answer about it. Everything has been very carefully choreographed, and funnily enough, I do not object to that as much as the hon. Member for Belfast, East did in an amusing section of his speech. I do not mind things being choreographed if they have been properly thought through and will lead to a logical conclusion. Everything was very carefully set up. There are two Ministers on the Front Bench, including the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, who is particularly experienced and has dealt with Northern Ireland matters with distinction for several years now, and we also have a most experienced Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and a Prime Minister and advisers who have been taking a keen interest in Northern Ireland. With the help and encouragement of the Opposition and all good men and women on both sides of the water, they have been trying to get a lasting settlement in Northern Ireland.
	I cannot understand, however, why nobody stopped and thought about whether decommissioning would be transparent. If anybody had asked that question, there is no doubt that Ministers would have answered as I would have done and said that, if the act of decommissioning is substantialthe key in deciding whether power sharing takes placeit must be transparent, as it will not be believed otherwise. How have we got into a position in which hopes were raised? Like many other hon. Members, when I watched events unfold on television in my office upstairs, I was excited and thought that Gerry Adams went a lot further in his speech than I had seen him go before. He appeared to come much nearer to saying that the war was over and that only peaceful means would be used in moving forward. I was excited and hopeful, and I expected decommissioning to match. The fact that it was not transparent ruined everything that had been so carefully set up. I am sure that Ministers had done hours of work, along with the Prime Minister, advisers and democratically elected politicians in the Province, but it all suddenly came to nothing.
	When the Minister sums up this useful debate, we have a right to an explanation of why nobody noticed the lack of transparency in what appeared to be a hopeful move forward towards a lasting peace and a long-term devolved Administration that would share power after elections. If we do not get an answer to that question, there will be all sorts of rumours and doubts in the Province and elsewhere, and when the elections are over and we are all trying to move forward to a power-sharing Executive and complete decommissioning, there will be no faith and confidence. That is essential today, so let us hope that we get a proper answer from the Minister.

William Cash: The debate has been immensely important because it deals not only with the motion on the Order Paper, but the whole question of the degree of trust that we can have in the peace process and the prospects for a stable and secure Northern Ireland as it moves towards elections. As many hon. Members said, the context in which the debate takes place is in some ways even more important than the precision of the wordingwhich is not to say that that is not of vital importance.
	There are a vast number of unanswered questions, and it would be a massive misconception to think that the debate will somehow resolve them. Some of the issues at the heart of these discussions correspond in a rather alarming fashion with those that we faced in relation to the tragic death of Dr. Kelly and the evidence that was given before the Hutton inquiry. As I explained in the debate last week, those unresolved questions affect our ability to get to the bottom of what has really been going on.
	It would be a vast mistake to underestimate the fact that words matter. In Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty says to Alice: Words mean what you choose them to mean. The question is who is to be master, that is all. The Minister tried to finesse the word information by introducing the idea of the sense in which it is used. When one reflects, however, on the distinction between the reality of such words and the confusion and uncertainty that they can generate in relation to Northern Ireland, it puts one in mind of the history of the Irish question and the frequency with which the misuse of words has led to difficulties that could otherwise have been avoided. I say that because for more than 150 years my own family have been directly involved in the Irish question as Members of Parliament. I recall the difficulties that arose over Parnell and the great historic events that have taken place. Much good progress has been made. That is why I pay tribute to Members who recognise that although we have to address this question as a matter of accuracy, so much is at stake that we do not want anything to disturb it.
	I do not need to go through wording that has already been exhaustively discussed, but the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) asked several questions that must be answered. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) raised issues about precision that require examination, especially his references to scheme 1, scheme 2, paragraph 25 and paragraph 5. Although those are technical points, they lie at the heart of the matter.
	A balance has to be struck between confidentiality, specific transparencies and the broader transparency of whether the Prime Minister, in making such statements not only outside but inside the House, finds that his words can be reconciled, not only with his own statements but with those of General de Chastelain. It is also a question of whether we will be able to restore respect for politicians. In the context of Northern Ireland, that has never been more needed than in the past 30 or 40 years.
	So what is to be done? Clearly, there is a contradictionsome may call it confusionthat cannot be left to rest. The reality is that there are options open to us. I have heard some hon. Members say that the Prime Minister should come here and make his own statement. I personally think that that is the most appropriate way of dealing with the situation. An alternative, which I mentioned in an intervention on the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke), is that the Prime Minister could appear before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and explain the circumstances under cross-examination. Another option is that he could go to the Security and Intelligence Committee. I went through the Intelligence Services Act 1994 this morning: it applies to Northern Ireland. There are procedures in place. There are options, and ways of dealing with this issue.
	At the heart of the matter is a sense of the correctness of the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who set out the case in terms that occasionally caused a little disturbance. Sometimes, however, disturbance is necessary in order to get to the truth. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) caught the essence of the parliamentary nature of trust in the House and outside. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford, there are questions of integrity and truthfulness that have to be examined in this broad context. I had to ask in our debate last week on the question of a judicial inquiry: who is speaking the truth? Two members of the war CabinetI do not need to go any further down that route. The reality is that this is becoming a pattern of behaviour, and it is a matter of grave concern that we clarify matters and get these things straight.

Lembit �pik: Have we not established, unless the Minister says something different in her summary, that we all accept that General de Chastelain was telling the truth when he said that he had not provided any extra information? If that is the case, does that not beg a conclusion?

William Cash: The logic of the hon. Gentleman's speech and of what he has just saidI pay tribute to bothsums up the position, as did the exceptionally good speech of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). That question has to be answered. In fact, not a single person on the Labour Benches has attempted to rebut the substance of any of the points that we have made. They just want to move on; there is no reverse gear. That is the problem. But we cannot stay stuck in a situation in which there are matters of enormous importance not only to the House but to the whole process of obtaining peace and security in Northern Ireland, and then, in the fog of confusion that will arise, have to deal with the election. Imagine what would happen during the election if these issues were turned into soundbites, and we then found that there was no answer, no bottom line, and no ability to determine the truth when the electorate go to vote.
	I have in my hand the ministerial code, which is described as
	A code of conduct and guidance on procedures for ministers.
	In the foreword, the Prime Minister says:
	In issuing this Code, I should like to reaffirm my strong personal commitment to the bond of trust between the British people and their Government. We are all here to serve and we must all serve honestly and in the interests of those who gave us our positions of trust . . . I believe we should be absolutely clear about how Ministers should account, and be held to account, by Parliament and the public.
	Where is the Prime Minister today? He is not here to answer these questions. If he has a proper and sensible answer[Interruption.] The fact is that the Prime Minister could clear this up, one way or another. Let us be in no doubt about that. [Interruption.] I hear from the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary that the Prime Minister has cleared it up. Is there anybody in the House who believes that? Does any member of the public believe it? The Government Whip nods, so I know it cannot be true.
	That same code of conduct states that
	it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister.
	I look for an answer. I believe there is an answer. But Prime Ministers remain Prime Ministers only for as long as they keep the trust of the people, and therefore on this particular occasion it is a disgrace that the Prime Minister is not in the House to answer our questions.

Angela Smith: I apologise for not being present throughout the debate. I shall write to Members whose speeches I missed. I was at an event for the Tim Parry/Jonathan Ball trust; I am sure Members understand how important that was. I also apologise for the fact that I may not have time to respond to all the Members to whom I would like to respond, although I shall do my best.
	At the outset of the debate, we doubted the wisdom of holding it at this time. Nevertheless, I am happy to acknowledge that we have heard thoughtful and interesting contributions. I believe that there is a great wish in all parts of the Houseor almost allfor the decommissioning process to succeed fully, given that it is a key element of the completion of the transition of Northern Ireland politics to an exclusively peaceful and democratic basis.
	We have done the groundwork for that final transition. The progress made in meetings between the parties and with the Governments that preceded 21 October was extremely significant. As has been acknowledged, on that day we did not see the full sequence of events that would have made the extent of the advance clear, and opened the way to resumed devolved government after the election. We should all recognise, however, that the Sinn Fein leader's speech and the IRA's statement, accompanied by the act of decommissioning itself, constitute a clear indication that we are moving forward. We shall need to build on this after the election. But this is the kind of process that requires us to speak and act with judgment and restraint. Some Members recognise that: others, unfortunately, do not.
	In the future decommissioning process, we shall depend heavily on the Independent International Commissioning on Decommissioning. As my right hon. Friend the Minister stressed, we all owe a deep debt of gratitude to General de Chastelain, his colleague Mr. Andrew Sens and, indeed, his former colleagues Ambassador Johnston and Brigadier Nieminen. Their diligence and integrity have been manifest, and are a great asset for the future in Northern Ireland.
	Some Members have focused on the wider picture. Othersperhaps predictably, but regrettablyhave insisted on continuing to play games with words in an attempt to milk for some supposed political advantage the tireless efforts of the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, General de Chastelain, Mr. Sens and the party leaders in Northern Ireland. We have seen a depressing performance from some quarters, and it was no less depressing for being thoroughly inept. It is not likely to persuade any impartial observer that there is any point of substance in the allegations that have been made.
	I consider this the low point of Opposition tactics in Northern Ireland in the present Parliament so far, and I hope it will turn out to have been the low point of the entire Parliament. I hope that the Conservative party will realise how few favours it is doing itself. [Interruption.] Conservative Members would do well to listen occasionally, rather than rattling and prattling on. What upsets my colleagues and me most is the danger posed and the damage caused to the peace process, and to the public interest of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) should learn from your earlier rulings on his comments, Mr. Speaker.
	The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) referred to issues of inclusiveness. Devolved government was suspended last year because of a lack of confidence between two of the parties. The restoration of confidence between those parties is a key element in moving forward. The Government have facilitated that process. There have been a large number of meetings, which, despite Opposition Members' comments, have been extremely productive. However, we would not have made great advances in recent times without the support of all the pro-agreement parties. We should all pay tribute to all those parties, because their efforts have brought the process to this stage. For example, I highlight the commitment of the Social Democratic and Labour party to the policing process. Without its work, we would not be where we are now.
	Issues of transparency were raised by the right hon. Members for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay), who was late to the debate, although I recognise his commitment to, and work in, Northern Ireland in the past. The statements by the leader of Sinn Fein and by the IRA were major steps forward and confirmed the commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
	The act of decommissioning overseen by the IICD was very welcome but, unfortunately, as the right hon. Member for Upper Bann stressed, it did not achieve the necessary degree of public confidence. The point was made forcefully that, a significant act of decommissioning having been undertaken, such confidence has not been achieved because of the lack of transparency. He said that he did not agree with the confidentiality. I understand his reservations but it has to be said that, without that confidentiality in the past, it would not have been possible to make the progress that has been made to date and that he and every other hon. Member welcomes.
	I do not think that it would be relevant now to go into the detail of the two schemes. Suffice it to say that we would want greater transparency. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, the greatest possible transparency is preferable.
	The amount of detail that the commission discloses depends on its view of what is necessary in the circumstances to fulfil its duty. That is a judgment for the commission, and it is a difficult judgment for it to make. We must put our trusteven the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford has to do soin General de Chastelain.
	A number of points and semantics were made by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). The Prime Minister and the Taoiseach were able to gain from their discussions with General de Chastelain a greater sense of the scale and nature of the decommissioning event than members of the public, who had to rely on the statement and the press conference. I fail to see why Opposition Members do not accept that and do not want to move forward from there.
	The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) argued against confidentiality. He argued against much more as well, but it is election time

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
	Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 186, Noes 332.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House notes the importance of confidentiality to effective decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland; expresses its gratitude for the professionalism of General de Chastelain and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning; welcomes the further positive developments in the peace process set out by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his statement to the House on 22nd October, including the calling of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 26th November; calls on all parties in the House to engage constructively in furthering the peace process in Northern Ireland; and looks forward to further progress after the elections towards the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland on a stable and inclusive basis.

Water Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 3)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading
	That
	(1) Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Programme Order of 8th September 2003 relating to the Water Bill be omitted;
	(2) proceedings on consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the following table, and each part of the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on the day on which those proceedings are commenced at the time specified in the second column;
	
		TABLE
		
			 Proceedings Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1; amendments relating to Part 1. 5 hours before the moment of interruption. 
			 New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 2; amendments relating to Clause 34, Schedule 1, Clause 35, Schedule 2, Clause 36, Schedule 3, Clauses 37 to 56, Schedule 4. 4 hours before the moment of interruption.  
			 New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 3 (except new Clauses and new Schedules relating to fluoridation); amendments relating to Clause 57, Clauses 59 to 85, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 86 to 98. 3 hours before the moment of interruption. 
			 New Clauses and new Schedules relating to fluoridation; amendments relating to Clause 58; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules; amendments relating to Clauses 99 and 100, Schedules 7 to 9, Clauses 101 to 104. 1 hour before the moment of interruption. 
		
	
	(3) proceedings on Third Reading shall, so far as not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.[Gillian Merron.]

Bill Wiggin: It is a bad reflection on the House that we are even having this debate. We are all short of timeno one more so than the Minister, perhapsand trying to cram as much as possible into our lives. But the use of guillotines to restrict debate is wrong and dumbs down the freedom of speech, passage of information and argument that we all value so highly

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members who are not staying for this debate please leave quickly and quietly? This debate deserves to be heard as much as any other.

Bill Wiggin: All hon. Members make speeches, but if we try to go faster, we will reach the stageI fear that we are there are alreadywhere we are too busy to listen to other hon. Members' speeches. Perhaps this is a good moment to point that out, as one glance at the Chamber makes clear.
	This programme motion is an affront. For that reason, if for no other, I shall urge the House to oppose it. However, we should oppose it for other reasons too. It presupposes that the proposals on quarry dewatering, changes to the regulator, the ability to take possession of privately owned sewers and the regulation of water supplies are not sufficiently important to warrant more than a few moments of time each.
	The proposals in clause 6 mean that we need to protect the British drinking water industry from environmental damage, as small unlicensed abstractors will be able to drill bore holes into the aquifer. That could damage the aquifer and cause contamination to bottled water. We argued that the Environment Agency should have powers to monitor environmental damage. Small, unlicensed bore holes must not be able to undermine a company's investment and sustainable development. The Environment Agency must be able to be alerted to any problems.
	In clause 17, we believe that there should be a link between abstraction licence applications and planning permission. In that way, a business wishing to abstract water could take more than one course of action. Provided that it has planning permission, a business should be able to go ahead with abstracting water, as long as it is environmentally safe to do so.
	Abstraction and impounding are issues of extreme importance, but the Bill is inadequate to secure the investor confidence needed by water abstraction businesses. I have tabled two new clauses and some new amendments in connection with abstraction, and I believe that having just one hour for the debate will be inadequate. Enough time must be provided for discussion of all the complicated matters to do with that special issue, on which the livelihoods of water abstractors depend. I have severe doubts as to whether one hour will be sufficient.

George Osborne: My hon. Friend is starting to set out a very persuasive case.

Eric Forth: But only starting.

George Osborne: But only starting, as my right hon. Friend says. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) is talking about abstraction licences, and the relevant part of the Bill could have a huge impact on the quarrying industry. One hour is wholly inadequate for discussion of the many points that constituents have raised with many hon. Members, including me.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend is right, and I am grateful to him for drawing the House's attention to that very germane point. The size of the investment that firms must make in quarrying machinery, and the fact that it is impossible to quarry without abstracting water, mean that the Bill puts a heavy question mark over the future of the industry. It is very worrying that we will have so short a time for debate of such a crucial matter.
	I know that the Minister has taken the trouble to meet quarrying industry representatives and that he has been sympathetic to their concerns. However, his sympathy and assurances are not enough. We need to have the necessary undertakings written into the Bill, and there will not be enough time to make sure that that happens.
	In addition, the Bill places time limits on licences. At the moment, licences will be certain only for 12 years. That is only one of the provisions that will undermine the key factor that is investor confidence. Although nearly all the costs involved in the water industry can be offset over a long period, that will be undermined if the Environment Agency can take licences away after just 12 years. In London, our drains, pipes and sewers were built by the Victorians, more than a hundred years ago. Water industry equipment is likely to last for a long time, but the Bill makes it difficult for investors to have the sort of confidence that they should have in such projects. The Environment Agency must be able to take into account the infrastructure costs and investments associated with abstraction and then make the decision on the life of the abstraction licence. That gives it greater freedom to issue longer licences when it is safe, especially environmentally safe, to do so.
	Three topics of great importance to the future of our water industry, not only for businesses but for the customer, are the regulator, discharge to water courses and consumer council publications. Again, allowing only one hour for discussion of those three detailed topics is insufficient. We want to address several concerns surrounding those topics, such as the regulators of the new water services regulation authority and access to information available to the new council, but I fear that we will be short-changed in the amount of time that we have to do that.

John Bercow: My hon. Friend is offering a probing analysis of the deficiencies of the Government's position. As he is renowned for his self-effacement, however, I would not want him to understate the case in any way. Will he therefore confirm, for my benefit and to provide elucidation to the House, that for a Bill with 104 clauses, nine schedules and an unpredictable number of amendments to consider, the Government propose a truly draconian truncation of the debate, which will allow three or four minutes to consider each clause? Will not that outrage the listening public as much as it outrages us?

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In his usual eloquent manner, he states the case exactly as it is. I also hope that the listeningor watchingpublic to whom he refers are gripped by the very short debate, but, as he says, they will be disappointed.

David Heath: Is not Report supposed to be the stage at which those of us who have constituency interests have an opportunity to speak? As a Member with significant quarrying interests in my constituency, I want to contribute to the debate on the quarrying industry. I see clearly from this programme that I will not have the opportunity to do so[Hon. Members: Why not?] Because the Front Benches will take the time.

Bill Wiggin: I will do my best not to take too much time, to allow the hon. Gentleman to make the points that he wishes to make. The point that he has just made, however, is true. He is right that the quarrying industry affects many constituencies and Members of the House, who will not have the opportunity to represent their constituents in the way that they would prefer. It is a draconian motion, as my hon. Friend described it.

Joan Walley: Does the hon. Gentleman also accept that in relation to issues such as quarrying, talks are going on behind the scenes, through the Departments, with the various interest groups, to ensure that those issues are considered? That is an issue of concern, but it is being dealt with through the guidance.

Bill Wiggin: The hon. Lady's point is extremely worrying. We are talking about what is written in the Bill. We are legislating for all quarrying participants and abstractors. We cannot do that through behind-the-scenes conversations. Even if we could do so, the Minister's assurances may not be there for ever: perhaps he will be promoted, perhaps he will disappear on one of his ghost shipswho knows? It is extremely worrying that the hon. Lady suggests even for a moment that we can legislate with behind-the-scenes chats. I find that most unworthy of her.

Joan Walley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is allowed to misrepresent what was said in that way. There was a genuine point

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady should not try to pursue on a point of order what is in reality a matter of debate.

Bill Wiggin: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I will give way if the hon. Lady would like to have another crack at trying to tell us that we should be legislating through behind-the-scenes chats.

Chris Grayling: Apart from the obvious issues in relation to the quarrying industry, large numbers of people in all our constituencies are looking to the House next week to debate properly the issue of fluoridation, which could undoubtedly fill an entire day of the parliamentary calendar were that opportunity to be made available. Does my hon. Friend agree that those people will feel profoundly let down by a Government who fail to make adequate time available for a proper and full debate of a major and important public health issue about which so many feel so strongly?

Bill Wiggin: I agree with my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. I shall come to fluoridation in a moment, but the issue will affect every household in the country and particularly the people who have the young children who are most vulnerable to tooth decay. One may believe that fluoridation is the best way of tackling that problem or that other methods should be explored, but it is almost deceitful that such provisions should be slipped into the Water Bill. I accept the reasons given in Committee as to why the Government chose to behave in this somewhat underhand manner, but there will be a deficit in the length of our debate. No matter how much we would like to debate this provision in the Bill more, there is another probably more sinister side to the matter. The decision on whether fluoride should be added to water will not be taken by us in the House. It will be pushed to the strategic health authorities, and that is a further derogation of our duty.

George Osborne: The votes on fluoridation will, unusually, be free votes for Opposition and Government Members. Does my hon. Friend therefore not agree that hon. Members may be more susceptible in those circumstances to listening to the debate and making up their minds rather than following a party Whip? Is it not then even more important that we have adequate time to hear all the arguments on fluoridation?

Bill Wiggin: That is a tremendous point. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Furthermore, most hon. Members will have fairly open minds on this issue, particularly because the conclusions of the York report were so questionable. It did the work properly and suggested that there was a risk, but it said that further research needed to be carried out. The Government have failed to carry out that research and have proceeded with their legislative programme. That is astonishing. I agree that a great deal more time should be set aside so that we can obtain as much information as possible from the Government. They seem to be so confident that this is the best way to go ahead with mass medication that they have hidden it in the Water Bill.

Chris Grayling: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been seeking to avoid discussing this issue in public? Two weeks ago I was drawn at No. 7 in the list for DEFRA oral questions, but Ministers transferred that question because they said that this issue was not a matter for the Department even though it is the sponsor of the Bill. The Government are trying to avoid discussing a matter of such great importance.

Bill Wiggin: I remember that my hon. Friend and I discussed this at length, because I was horrified by the way that he had been treated. He is right. I suspect that Ministers were frightened of him. I can think of no other reason why they should shy away from his incisive questioning.

John Bercow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his customary generosity. Given that Ministers have a disagreeable habit of arguing in these circumstances that all the relevant matters have been exhaustively debated in Standing Committee, thereby justifying the circumscription of debate on Report, may I add ammunition to my hon. Friend's arsenal by making the point that some of us were not so favoured or fortunate as to be chosen to sit on the Standing Committee? That does not mean that we do not wish to inform the House of our viewsif necessary, at appropriate length on Report.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend makes another extremely important point and I am very grateful to him for doing so. I suspect that, because he is such a tremendous debater, he will arm me with almost weapons of mass destruction. I do not think that I would be too upset watching the Government crumble before him.

George Osborne: A 45-minute warning.

Bill Wiggin: Indeed, a 45-minute warning.
	On the time limit of licences, we must cover the 12-year problem and the presumption of renewal. The presumption of renewal is a key issue for those investing in quarrying and abstraction. Provided that they are not doing any damage, the Bill should contain a provision that gives them a proper presumption of renewal. However, it does not. There will be problems with those who wish to appeal, and difficulties arise because details of how compensation will be claimed have not been set out. We could have thrown a little more light on those issues on Report, and it is again a tragedy that there will be a shortage of time. In Committee, we said that the Environment Agency needs to take account of infrastructure, costs and investments associated with abstraction before making a decision on the life of the abstraction licence.
	We should address the conduct of the regulator and discharge to watercourses. The functions of the chairman and chief executive of the new water service regulatory body should be separate to prevent one person from having too much power in the regulation of the water industry. Clause 98 must ensure that surface water is kept separate from foul water in calculations of sewage water capacity. When new sewers are built, proper calculations should be taken into consideration so that if flash floods occur, water has the proper facilities to run off. If sewers flood back, which they do at present, it causes horrendous foul flooding that is deeply upsetting to householders and causes much damage. That could be avoided with proper regulation, but the Bill represents a missed opportunity to do that.
	Clause 83 addresses the important duty to conserve water and improve water efficiency. An amendment relating to that issue was tabled by Labour Members and we had an important debate. I hope that further such amendments will be selected by Mr. Speaker, but who can tell at this stage? The water conservation duties in the Bill are too weak, and I hope to strengthen them on Report. I hope that an hour will be sufficient to hold an in-depth and constructive discussion on how to ensure the future best efficiency of our water because, after all, we all want the best possible management of water. Unfortunately, I doubt that there will be sufficient time for the views of the number of hon. Members who are passionate about that to be heard. The matter is of interest to hon. Members of all parties who have said how keen they are for a duty to preserve water properly to be imposed on all office holders.

Andrew Lansley: My hon. Friend touched on the structure of the regulator and regulatory methodology. Does he agree that we do not yet know whether the time availablean hourto consider a range of subjects including the structure of the regulator will be sufficient? It was evident in Committee that the Government's proposals on the structure of the regulator were questionable, and the Government were questioned by not only Conservative but Labour Members. The chances of the Government tabling amendments should be high, in which case we might not need to debate them at length. However, we did not have time to consider the impact of regulatory methodology and the regulator's regulatory impact assessments in Committee. Under the programme motion, there is a risk that we will not reach those issues on Report either.

Bill Wiggin: I agree with my hon. Friend, who was a huge asset to the Committee because his wide-ranging experience of the way in which such legislation should be written was crucial. Tragically, he is absolutely right about the lack of time to explore the issues that he mentioned. However, the situation is worse than that. We want to use the framework on which he touched to ensure that proper regulation will exist so that people will behave in the way in which the Government want rather than having to be punished and pursued after a transgression. It would be helpful for the Bill to include such a provision but, tragically, it will not.

George Osborne: Surely it is important to remember when considering the time allowed for discussing the groups of amendments that if there is a disagreement in the House and Divisions are called, that will eat into the debating time. In some cases, we might have only half an hour in which to discuss important issues.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am reminded that we do not know whether there will be a statement on Monday, which would also eat into the time allowed for the debate. I am glad to say that guillotines and knives are bad because all Conservative Members think that we need the opportunity to hold the Government to account. They are wriggling by moving such a programme motion. I am worried that issues such as fluoridation, which my hon. Friends touched on, will not receive more than two hours if we are lucky. The situation is absurd. The topic is controversial. Much doubt and uncertainty surrounds it. Fluoridation should be allocated much more time. It is appalling how the relevant clause has been pushed into the Bill without providing reasonable time for a quality debate.

Chris Grayling: Does my hon. Friend agree that we might ascribe honourable motives to Ministers if we were at a time in the parliamentary calendar

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We always ascribe honourable motives to all Members of the House.

Chris Grayling: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me rephrase my remarks. Does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers' motivations in selecting the timetable might be more dependable were the calendar packed with business? As we saw yesterday and see today, many parts of the parliamentary calendar are allocated to Adjournment debates, for example. Does he agree that if Ministers wanted to make time available, it would be easy for them to do so in the next few days?

Bill Wiggin: I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes his point most honourably. The speed at which the Bill is accelerating through both Houses is unseemly and does not do justice to the importance of the argument.
	Other unanswered questions left over from the Committee will also need to be debated. The Minister was amenable in Committee, but even he will not have time during the two hours to cover all matters raised. In fact, when we debated fluoridation, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), responded[Interruption.] It seems that fluoridation slipped into a DEFRA Bill. The Government have ensured that the lack of debate will prevent everyone from having their say, including the public. After all, we need to debate fully whether the public will get a proper opportunity to be consulted and have their say on what happens to them.
	We need to thrash out how the Government will proceed with their intended agenda of introducing a registered poison into our drinking water while protecting companies through an indemnification policy instead of devolving the matters to local authorities, which are democratically elected and accountable, as opposed to strategic health authorities, which are not. Strategic health authorities are also not local, whereas local authorities are in touch with local people. All households should be consulted. It is vital that everyone in an affected area is not only presented with neutral in-depth information, but has the opportunity to have their say, perhaps in a referendum. That is not in the Bill. It is essential to cover that in a constructive debate.

George Osborne: As I said, my hon. Friend makes a powerful case for more time to be available to debate fluoridation. There are many things to consider, not just whether it is good or bad. I suspect many hon. Members on both sides of the House, not least on the Labour Benches, will be interested in making that argument. We also need to consider how fluoridation should take place and which body should be charged with the duty of determining public opinion in a particular area. Such matters cannot be debated in a maximum of two hours.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend is right. The questions on fluoridation that we asked in Committee were not answered in full. We were relying on the debates on Report to provide some of those answers. One question was the likely cost of indemnification. What will legal procedures cost? We have been assured by people who feel passionately about fluoridation that they will go to court because they believe that it infringes their human rights. I do not know whether that will happen for certain, but we need to know what it would cost. That alone will easily fill the time allowed, but we have only two hours for the whole debate.
	It is strange that the Government have decided to take time to put the Bill through both Houses but failed to allow a full debate on all aspects of it. In Committee we hurried through as much as we could and, despite receiving many assurances from the Minister, we are now hurrying through the Report stage as well. It is easy to grow cynical in old age, but the method of legislating is not as thorough as it could be[Hon. Members: Oh!] Methinks hon. Members do protest too much. We could do more to scrutinise the actions of the Government, especially a Government with such a large parliamentary majority, so we should we take a stand, like Moses before the Red sea, and watch the Water Bill part before us into untimed portions, each to be fully debated by the House.

Elliot Morley: I had not planned to say much during this debate, because the programme motion has already been debated and was agreed on 8 September. The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) talks about parting the Red sea, but it sounds to me like he is lost in the bulrushes, so it might help the House if I clearly set out what has been agreed.
	The motion does not alter the programme agreed by the House on 8 September, which is that the debate should last for one day, with the last hour reserved for Third Reading. The time allocated for debate on part 1, water resources, which includes quarry dewatering, will end at 5 pm. Debate on part 2, which deals with new regulatory structures, will end at 6 pm, allowing time to cover some of the points the hon. Gentleman raised. Debate on part 3, miscellaneous provisions, will end at 7 pm, which allows two hours to discuss fluoridation.

Chris Grayling: Has not the Minister experienced in his constituency the level of public interest in fluoridation? Does he not realise how many letters hon. Members have received on this subject? Does he not accept that many hon. Members will want to debate that subject? Does he not recognise that allowing only two hours is, to be frank, an insult to hon. Members on both sides of the House?

Elliot Morley: No, I do not accept that. I live in a fluoridated area and I have had no letters on the issue from constituents.

Paul Tyler: It is an anomaly that Report stage does not include a report. Will the Minister report to us how many new clauses, amendments and schedules were not properly scrutinised in Standing Committee? Is it not the case that Committee stage proved to be more controversial and more detailed than was anticipated back in September?

Elliot Morley: No, I do not accept that. Although I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise details off the top of my head, I can say that the Opposition parties felt that too much time had been allocated to discuss fluoridation in Committee, so, with the consent of the Committee, the three sittings allocated were reduced to two, which allowed us to take all the amendments and schedules, and finish them completely in the course of the Committee's sittings.

Bill Wiggin: Will the Minister give way?

Elliot Morley: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confirm or deny that my colleagues and I made every effort to take into account the Opposition's wishes when structuring the programme.

Bill Wiggin: The Minister is right about fluoridationwe did manage to cover almost all the issues associated with it. However, he is not correct about how much of the rest of the Bill was not covered, which was a significant amount. It is important that people know that the issues I touched on in the speech I just made were not covered in Committee.

Elliot Morley: Just about all the issues were coverednot all, and I do not pretend otherwise, but I have served on Bill Committees for many years, including under the Conservative Administration when there was no programming of Bills, and I think that we got through a greater proportion of the Water Bill than of many other Bills. The lack of programming under the Conservatives meant that big chunks of legislation were never reached, and Opposition Members should not forget that.

John Bercow: The Minister is sniffily dismissive of the idea that fluoridation is a matter of public controversy. I put it to him, for the avoidance of doubt, that I have received a plentiful supply of letters on that subject from constituents, who would not accept his categorisation of the issue as merely one of health, but regard it as one of civil liberties. Furthermore, I remind him that consideration in Standing Committee is separate from and irrelevant to the question of hon. Members having a chance to ventilate their views on the Floor of the House.

Elliot Morley: That is why the largest chunk of the time provided on Report has been given to the issue of fluoridation, precisely to allow Members on both sides of the House to put forward their points of view. That is right and proper.
	Following representations from the Opposition, we increased the number of sittings from nine to 11, and reached agreement on the programming. I have served in Committee on both programmed and un-programmed Bills. I believe that if programming is addressed in a sensible and rational way, as is proposed, it guarantees that many of the important issues raised during this debate can be discussed in a way that hardly ever happens during consideration of un-programmed Bills. I am not criticising Opposition parties, which have been constructive in their approach to an important Bill that contains many important measures, which I think the House wants to support and which people want to see enacted.

Sue Doughty: We, too, have concerns about the way in which the time for consideration of the Bill is being divided. One of the key issues is that even at this stage amendments are still being tabled. We are considering the allocation of time on Report and the grouping of amendments, yet we still do not know at what stage amendments will come before us for consideration and how much time will be needed to discuss them. If we end up with many amendments coming forward for consideration at the end of the Report stage, as often happens, we will not have adequate time to discuss them.
	It is a good thing that the fluoride issue is not taking over the entire Bill. There are a great many important issues to be discussed, of which fluoride is one. However, we still question why such a vital health issue ended up in the Bill. I understand the concern about the legality of putting fluoride in water and the water industry's concerns about where it stands on that, but it is a health issue. However, those are concerns that affect many constituents and there will not be much time to debate them.
	There are strong consumer issues. We have heard about quarrying, which affects many constituents. That is a key factor. Many Members want to make representations about those issues on the Floor of the House, and we need time to consider them.
	Liberal Democrat Members are tabling important amendments that address some of the key injustices[Interruption.] For us, they are important amendments. People in the south-west, for example, are paying large water bills and high environmental charges. Those are the injustices faced by people in the area, who are on very low incomes. We debated those matters in Committee. Having listened to the issues raised, we felt that it was right to bring forward further issues, particularly given that they concern Members with constituencies in the south-west, who have strong interests in the area.
	We have concerns about the debate on fluoride. When we debated the matter on Second Reading and in Committee, we found that there was a lack of good scientific information on human health and fluoride. We have tabled amendments that will enable us to discuss why such scientific information is not available. Such information should be collected year on year. There were a number of questions that no one could answer on Second Reading or in Committee, which we felt could be dealt with successfully during further consideration.

George Osborne: The hon. Lady is touching on one of the more constructive Liberal Democrat amendments that was tabled in Committee, which proposed an annual review of the impact of fluoridation in areas where it went ahead. I understand informally from members of the Government that they were quite sympathetic to the idea, but we never had a chance to discuss it. Under the programme motion, we may never get a chance to discuss it on Report.

Sue Doughty: I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. We were taken rather by surprise because we did not know when debate on the motion would take place. We were rushing round trying to find the Government's answers and who had written to whom. We still cannot find a letter that responds to the points that we raised. We knew that the Government said that they would respond to us. The letter may have arrived, but we cannot find it. In principle, we are not unhappy about grouping amendments, because it is important that we get to the end of the Bill and do not use the available time to discuss only half of it. We often discuss the initial clauses of a Bill for too long and fail to get to the end. It is important that we have time to do so. Many hon. Members want to speak on fluoride and quarrying, and it is a matter of grave concern that, once again, we are in danger of running out of time to discuss an important and wide-ranging Bill.

Question put:
	The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 181.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Vocational Education

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Gillian Merron.]

Ivan Lewis: Generations of politicians, educationists and industrialists have grappled with the challenge of making vocational education a success. I think that all hon. Members would accept that they have largely failed. No single speech, policy announcement or reform of the system will be enough to meet that awesome challenge. This debate is important, however, because it will shine a light on the Government's view that high-quality vocational education is central to the future success of our country and expose the contrasting agendas promoted by the respective parties.
	Ironically, there is significant consensus among Members on both sides of the House as to why vocational education matters. It matters because we will never have a fair society or a successful economy if our post-16 participation and attainment levels remain among the worst in the OECD. It also matters because there is a significant skills deficit at technician and craft level compared with France and Germany, and because young people need a variety of ways in which they can progress and achieve on their journey to the world of work and responsible adulthood.
	Far too often, opinion formers and policy makersof all political persuasions and nonehave given the impression that the only journey worth making is via the academic or conventional route. This Government's education reform agenda is about 100 per cent. of young people, not only the 50 per cent. who we want to access higher education by 2010. Vocational education matters because employers of all sizes in the private, public and voluntary sectors need well qualified young people. But, at the beginning of the 21st century, being well qualified must also involve possessing good communication, interpersonal, problem-solving, teamwork and leadership skills. In a dynamic global economy, adults can no longer count on one jobperhaps even two, three or fourfor life. Lifelong learning must support a new concept, namely employability for life. Perhaps most importantly of all, today's young people are the parents of tomorrow, and educational failure fans the flames of low aspirations and inter-generational economic and social exclusion. These are all reasons why vocational education matters.
	Let me take this opportunity briefly to remind hon. Members of the noble attempts that have been made through history to make a success of vocational education. In the 19th century, the state of vocational and technical education was repeatedly criticised, most notably in the Samuelson royal commission on technical education in 1884. The pattern of technical education that developed in the 19th century was institutionally marginalised from mainstream education. Whereas in France and Germany technical education was allied to general education, in Britain a divide developed between the two, separating skills and knowledge. The divide was cemented in divisions between Government Departments and agencies throughout the 20th century. The Board of Education, created in 1900, was to remain separateas the Ministry or Department of Educationfrom the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Employment for almost the entire century. The Departments were finally brought together into the Department for Education and Employment in 1995.
	Despite the Education Act 1944the Butler Actwhich for the first time required local education authorities to provide further education, vocational and technical education failed to develop clear, high-standard qualification routes or institutions of study linked to schools and the labour market. Curriculum and qualifications authorities for academic and vocational qualifications, and funding channels for post-school education and training, remained divided.
	The Manpower Services Commission was developed by the then Department of Employment. The MSC subsequently turned into the Training Commission and was then followed by the network of training and enterprise councils in the 1990s. The desire to improve links between schools and the world of employment led to the creation of the technical and vocational education initiative in the early 1980s. The TVEI saw significant investment in vocational school-based educationat its height, 141 million a year, using 19992000 prices as a benchmark. But Whitehall turf wars and the fact that the then Department of Education and Science was told of the initiative only at the very last momentthe mind bogglesmeant that, while the TVEI was widely welcomed by schools, it had little impact on the thinking of the DES, and it was eventually phased out.
	The Government do not intend to repeat the mistakes of history. Rather, we seek to learn the lessons of that history. We have charged Mike Tomlinson with the responsibility for leading a working group on 14 to 19 reform. The group, which we hope will produce its final report next summer, has been asked to address three main areas. The first is the need for a much stronger vocational offer, with a firm underpinning of general education. The second will involve ensuring that assessment within all programmes across the 14 to 19 phase is fit for purpose. The third is the development of a unified framework of qualifications suitable for young people across the whole range of ability.

Graham Allen: In my constituency, fewer young people go to university than in any other. In such areas, the vocational route is probably even more important than some of the university options that are currently exciting Members in all parts of the House. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue his good work, but will he also consider what is described as the navigationthe way in which people can move on from qualification to qualification? It is still difficult for young people to see a way forward into their 20s.

Ivan Lewis: I entirely agree. Our objective should be to help all young people enter skilled employment via either higher education or an alternative high-status vocational route. If we are to achieve that, we shall need the right provision in each area, especially for those over 16. That is why we have asked local learning and skills councils to conduct area reviews, so that each community has the right combination of institutions and we can deliver the progression route to all young people. My hon. Friend has campaigned and crusaded to that end in his constituency, because he understands that the raising of aspirations is one of the greatest and most fundamental challenges facing many constituencies.
	Over the past year, as well as asking Mike Tomlinson to look at education for 14 to 19-year-olds, we have published our proposals for the future of further and higher education, as well as our national skills strategy. We are establishing a number of building blocks to achieve long-term cultural change.
	For 14 to 16-year-olds, we are introducing a new curriculum with more flexibility to create an individual learning programme. Eighty thousand 14 to 16-year-olds from 1,800 schools are participating in the increased-flexibility programme, which involves their spending a couple of days a week at school, perhaps a couple of days at college, and one day a week with local employers. Eight new GCSEs were introduced in September 2002: applied art and design, applied business, engineering, health and social care, applied information and communications technology, leisure and tourism, manufacturing and applied science. GCSEs in construction and the performing arts will be available from next year.
	Subject to parliamentary approval, work-related learning will become a statutory requirement for all 14 to 16-year-olds next year, and in 200506 enterprise education will become part of the curriculum.
	Connexions is now up and running in every part of England. It involves working with schools to ensure that young people have access to good-quality impartial support when making curriculum and career choices, and giving more intensive support to teenagers when serious barriers get in the way of their learning.
	Post-16 modern apprenticeships have never been more popular. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated statement which may be heard when MPs meet business people or educationistsIt is a shame that we do not have apprenticeships any morewe have a thriving apprenticeship system. A record 230,000 young people are undertaking modern apprenticeships this year. Nevertheless, we want that number to grow significantly in the years ahead. Working with employers sector by sector, we must improve completion rates. Although they are getting better, they are not good enough.

Phil Willis: Would the Minister consider paying particular attention to core skills? Surely they should be part of the main thrust of modern apprenticeships. Many young people are put off completing the work by an additional test.

Ivan Lewis: I agree that completion, as well as encouraging more young people to participate in the first place, poses a major challenge, but I believe that if we are to provide a high-status, meaningful option in the form of a modern apprenticeship, we cannot seriously suggest that those participating should not be able to demonstrate that they possess key skills. I acknowledge that the way in which the key skills component is delivered is important, but I do not accept the argument advanced by some that key skills are the reason for the significant non-completion rate. The history of non-completion suggests that there is no direct correlation between it and the introduction of the key skills test.

Andrew Lansley: If the Minister thinks that there is no correlation with the external assessment of key skills, will he look at an alternative interpretation of why the completion rate is not as high as it should be: the absence now of a realistic option for young people to go for other training? In effect, therefore, they are being given no choice but to go into foundation modern apprenticeships, which they probably have no realistic likelihood of successfully completing.

Ivan Lewis: I think that a combination of factors leads to non-completion, and we need to be clear about that combination. For example, undoubtedly, some young people and employers decide not to proceed all the way through because their relationship is positive and the young person is earning a salarya decision is made that there is no need to complete the apprenticeship. However, we recognised that there was a gap, which is why we have introduced the entry to employment scheme. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of that initiative, but this year a significant number of young people are choosing that option. They are the ones who are not ready to participate even in foundation modern apprenticeships. I would be delighted to furnish him with more details on the entry to employment scheme. It has filled the gap and addressed the problem that he rightly identifies: a cohort of young people who do not have the skills to enable them to commence even a foundation modern apprenticeship.

Jon Trickett: I, too, pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend is doing. In constituencies such as the one that I represent, a former mining area, with the lowest possible levels of education attainment, it is imperative that we get people to feel that high-quality, high-esteem qualifications are available as a route into work. However, does he not accept that we have mixed economy provision, which is complex and sometimes a bureaucratic nightmare? Will he address in particular the issue of blocks of money, which are made available by his Department for our institutions, being handed out, rather than subjected to competitive tendering among various providers? That is extremely unhealthy.

Ivan Lewis: The criteria must be quality and standards, and contractual arrangements must be made with those providers who can demonstrate that they have the capacity to deliver quality provision. In the context of modern apprenticeships, one of the criteria that we must set is that providers should support and achieve a much higher completion rate. Locality by locality, I expect local learning and skills councils to make decisions on contracting linked to standards, quality and clear outcome expectations. The reform of both further education and training provision through the success for all reform and investment programme should get us to the stage that my hon. Friend wants us to reach.

Jon Trickett: It seems that in some areas we are in danger of creating a quasi-monopoly. I am thinking not only regionally and locally but nationally. Is there not a risk that we will put all our eggs in one basket, which does not necessarily drive up standards among provider institutions? Would it not be better to say that we will look for competitive tendering wherever that is feasible?

Ivan Lewis: We have made it clear that we see the mixed economy as part of the system that we wish to create in which competition exists between colleges and training providers in both the private and voluntary sectors. The central thrust of that system, however, must be quality. We know that, sometimes, competition is a powerful lever to guarantee quality. If my hon. Friend has some specific examples where he feels that monopoly provision is not supporting high-quality standards, I would be pleased to hear about them.
	It is important to refer in the context of modern apprenticeships to the taskforce that has been created under the chairmanship of Sir Roy Gardner, the head of Centrica. Unfortunately, he is also the chairman of Manchester United plcbut that was not in the briefing when I agreed to his appointment as chairman of the taskforce. The role of the taskforce is not only to engage far more employers in offering places to young people on modern apprenticeships but to ensure that we have ready access to employers' views on where modern apprenticeships are working and where there need to be policy revisions to ensure that, sector by sector, we get the framework for modern apprenticeships right. Therefore, the taskforce is important.
	On the point raised by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), some 50,000 young people are participating in the entry to employment provision to which I referred.
	All Members will accept that financial support is a very important factor in the choices that young people make. That is why we are incredibly proud of education maintenance allowances, which will be available nationally from September 2004. However, it is also important that we look at all financial support being offered at 16 to 19, so that we achieve cohesion and incentivise learning. We welcome the Treasury-led review in this area, and we have a particular interest in the impact on family means-tested benefits when young people participating in a full-time vocational college course are in receipt of a training allowance. We must ensure that the financial regime supports our objectives by encouraging young people to stay on, rather than encouraging them to drop out into low-paid, low-skilled employment.

Laura Moffatt: The Minister may be interested to know that the issues of quality and supporting students who go into further education, which we have already discussed, are very real ones for my constituents, especially the young people. Crawley college has just opened the Longley building, which is dedicated to construction services and will ensure that young people get the very best training. Such work offers them the prospect of support and superb training, ensuring that our economy in the south-east is vibrant and healthy and can support all the industries that we so badly need. Does the Minister agree that we need to build up a picture involving all the relevant organisationsemployers, learning and skills councils and colleges that are prepared to invest in their own buildingsto ensure that we can offer our students the very best?

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friendit is essential that we tear down the barriers between the world of education and the needs of the labour market in every region and sub-region. Many colleges are responding by developing, through capital investment and revenue funding, provision that genuinely meets the skills needs of specific sectors and their regional and sub-regional economies. What is happening in the college mentioned by my hon. Friend is an excellent example in that regard.
	We have also introduced foundation degrees. In 200203, 12,000 students were studying for such degrees; we anticipate that the number will increase to about 50,000 by 2006. In the recently published skills strategy, we announced a new entitlement to free learning for all adults in respect of the first level 2 qualification. We also announced our intention to lift the age cap on modern apprenticeships, and the creation of sector agreements, which will allow individual sectors to define the vocational courses that they will require to meet their future skills needs.
	Central to delivering this extremely ambitious agenda will be our capacity to raise standards, to improve the quality of provision and to create a new culture of collaboration between institutions in every area. We now have 1,445 specialist secondary schools; by 2006, there will be 2,000. As Members are aware, specialisms include arts, business, languages, science and technology. The seeking of specialist status and the requirement for sponsorship and community engagement have built relationships between schools and employers that will offer new vocational opportunities to many young people.
	Further education colleges and training providers are benefiting from the groundbreaking success for all reform and investment programme, which provides unprecedented levels of investment in return for a more demand-led, high-quality system. As was pointed out, we now have 251 centres of vocational excellence, and the number will increase to 400 by 2006. The centres are being developed in co-operation with employers, and subjects include construction, engineering, manufacturing, technology, information and communications technology, and tourism. Local learning and skills councils are conducting area reviews to ensure the right configuration of post-16 institutions, and to support progression and attainment in any community.

Graham Allen: The learning and skills councils are obviously central to everything that my hon. Friend is trying to achieve, so will he ensure that they take into account the contribution that secondary schools can make? In my constituency, most kids see school finishing at 16. One way in which we can get young people to bridge into 17 and 18-year-old education is to have on-sitenot comprehensive, but well definedfacilities on each of the school sites. As I mentioned previously, some of the schools in my constituency do not achieve particularly high academic qualifications, but vocational educationperhaps sponsored by further education or badged by universities locallycould help youngsters to aspire to higher educational levels. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the Learning and Skills Council is fully aware that that is one possible route that it is able to fund?

Ivan Lewis: We have made it absolutely clear to the Learning and Skills Council that we do not have a one-size-fits-all national solution. What we want in every community is the most innovate and imaginative ways of supporting the maximum number of young people to progress and achieve in learning. We have also made it clear to the LSC that it has responsibility to engage with Members of Parliament, local councils and councillors to ensure that its decisions have the maximum possible support within local communities, and to tackle some of the fundamental structural problems that, over many years, have got in the way of achieving the aspirational agenda that we want. I urge my hon. Friend to join local learning and skills councils in ensuring that high-quality provision is made available in his area.

Graham Allen: May I press my hon. Friend on site-specific or on-site provision at schools where children normally leave at 16? People want not to be told what should happen, but to have options. There seems to be a degree of reticence in respect of school sites with further education, university or other possibilities. Many children will not travel to an FE college and may feel inhibited about leaving their school and going to a sixth-form college, for example, but they could be nurtured from 16 into 17 and 18-year-old education by a teacher who knows them. If they go to an FE college, they may be one of several thousand sloshing through the doors who, although I mean no disrespect to FE colleges, are not given enough personal attention. Children will be one of many, which can lead to the sort of drop-out rates that were mentioned earlier.

Ivan Lewis: Let me be clear to my hon. Friend: there is a range of options to meet the objectives that I have set out. We have school sixth forms, sixth-form colleges, distinct provision within FE colleges, and post-16 provision located in the environment of a school where it is felt to be the most appropriate solution. We do not impose a one-size-fits-all model, but we do believe that it is right that local communities, in considering post-16 progression, reflect seriously on all the options.

Andrew Lansley: In the course of our discussions on the role and performance of regional development agencies, we examined their relationship with learning and skills councils. It seems clear that there is a discontinuity between the national governance of the Learning and Skills Counciland the sub-regional deliverers, the learning and skills councils in counties or unitary authoritiesand the regional development agencies. The skills strategy published by the Minister's Department talked about the integration of learning and skills councils and regional development agencies. We can see joint working on the ground, but not how integration will happen. How can the local partnerships that the Minister describes determine the shape of local provision in practice?

Ivan Lewis: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. By the end of this year, each regional development agency will be expected to produce proposals for an integrated approach to skills, with local learning and skills councils, Business Link and Jobcentre Plus. That is one response. I also believe that the new chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council is considering, as we speak, the appropriate relationship and structures to ensure that the council engages to maximum effect with RDAs. The concerns that the hon. Gentleman articulates are being addressed, and they need to be addressed if we are to stimulate the demand among employers and individuals for the skills that we want.

David Chaytor: My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) raised the question of choice and variety at the age of 16. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the dilemma is that in many parts of the countryif not mostcolleges have better facilities for vocational education, but the schools have the advantage of loyalty from students? The key is the provision of comprehensive and objective advice about all the options available, so that young people are not influenced unduly by their attachment to their school, where the curriculum may not be appropriate, or by the attraction of the facilities at college, which might not provide the right context for their studies. What we need is good educational advice before the age of 16.

Ivan Lewis: I always agree with my hon. Friend from Buryfor obvious reasons. We are moving from a culture of competition to one of collaboration. That brings with it new challenges and dilemmas for policy and professional relationships, but it is the right direction to take. The impartiality of the advice, information and support given to young people about curriculum and career choices is important. That has to involve a partnership between the Connexions service and careers advice in schools. Increasingly, it must also involve employers going into schools and young people going out into the world of work. That will help to ensure that choices are made for realistic and practical reasons, rather than an outdated view of what certain industries can offer.
	One concern in the past was that young people were steered in the wrong direction, which led to dropout and disillusionment and those young people never returning to education. Supporting young people to make the right choices is essential, but ensuring that we have the right provision is equally important to local communities.

Graham Allen: My hon. Friend's relaxed and helpful style is creating a genuine dialogue in the Chamber, for which he should be commended. Sixteen-year-olds need advice, but it is also important for them to see their big brother, big sister or the kid down the road staying on at school on the same site. Better provision may be available elsewhere, but students face peer group pressure. If a student's colleagues all leave school at 16, it may be seen as weird and unusual to stay on. That sort of pressure can be dissipated only by students seeing 17 and 18-year-olds from their street staying on at school on the same site, even if they are doing vocational education.
	I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way again.

Ivan Lewis: It is fair to say that I get the message. The causes of low aspirations are significant and deeply rooted. We have to challenge the low aspirations found in many communities in various ways: not least, we have to influence the attitudes of parents and families. We must bring a stronger cohesion to our actions in terms of adult learning and our school standards agenda. In my view, parents and grandparents who have gone back to learning are far more likely to support the educational potential of their children and grandchildren.

Kerry Pollard: My hon. Friend mentions aspiration, but a key group of Bengali and Pakistani students have lower aspirations than others. Are steps being taken to ensure that aspiration flows right through the system?

Ivan Lewis: I agree that we need a system that can respond appropriately to the needs of individuals in a way that has not been done before. We need that more personalised education response, but we also need a system that is sensitive to people's cultural and religious requirements and aspirations. In every part of the country, we are trying to provide educational institutions and services that can meet the needs of distinct local communities. That is why a national, one-size-fits-all approach is often not appropriate.
	I must make some progress now, for fear that some hon. Members might lose patience, despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) generously said about creating a dialogue in the Chamber.
	I turn now to the higher education White Paper's relevance to vocational education. It outlines a vision of world-class teaching, learning and research, and places higher education institutions at the centre of innovation and economic regeneration. Throughout all the reforms that I have described, work force development is essential. That will involve the remodelling of the school work force, the professionalisation of lecturers and tutors in post-16 provision and higher education, and the creation of a cadre of excellent leaders and managers across all sectors. Perhaps most significantly of all, we are also committed to the most radical overhaul of vocational qualifications for adults ever. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Learning and Skills Council and the Sector Skills Development Agency are working together to create bite-sized courses and the principle of mainstream unitisation.
	If we are to achieve our aspirations for vocational education, however, we cannot focus exclusively on providers. We must also find innovative ways of stimulating demand for learning among young people, adults and employers.
	The LSC is working with key members of the new national skills delivery group to develop a common marketing and communication strategy to promote vocational education. Learndirect has attracted 960,000 learners in only three years. The trade union learning fund and learning representatives have brought members and employers to the learning table for the first time. The employer training pilot schemes are offering advice and guidance combined with financial incentives to attract employers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. As I said earlier, local RDAs and LSCs, Business Link and Jobcentre Plus and are working together in each region to minimise bureaucracy and maximise their cumulative impact on demand.
	In addition, the Government are considering the extent of our influence as an employer, contractor and procurer of goods and services. I am in the process of conducting an internal review of education and business partnerships, and of our links with national voluntary organisations such as Young Enterprise, Business Dynamics and Trident to strengthen the dynamic that joins schools, colleges, employers and young people. Most importantly, we are committed to ensuring that by next year 85 per cent. of the UK work force will be covered by sector skills councils. At the moment, they are the missing piece in the skills jigsaw.
	I turn now to Her Majesty's Opposition, and thus move away from the consensus that is beginning to develop in the debate. Last week, the quiet man said that there was no knight in shining armour waiting over the hill to ride to the rescue of his party. He was right about that. The emperor elect says that he has learned
	that winning the argument is not the same as winning hearts and minds.
	That is an example of the Opposition's eternal arrogance. I assume that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) thinks that he won the argument over the poll tax or over his claim that the minimum wage would cost 2 million jobs. I have news for him, on both vocational education and higher educationhis party is winning neither the arguments, nor the hearts and minds.
	Conservative Members advocate the sheep and goats model of vocational education that has been a primary cause of our national failure in this area. They would determine that at 14 middle-class students took the academic route and disengaged working-class kids went vocational. They would create a two-tier system in which vocational was perceived as and became the inferior second-class option.

Graham Brady: Is the hon. Gentleman trying seriously to advance the thesis that the Government's policy of putting top-up fees on students is more popular than the Opposition's policy of scrapping fees? Does he not believe that we have won the argument on that, and have we not also won the argument on the Labour Benches?

Ivan Lewis: I am coming to that.
	In higher education, the Conservatives would significantly reduce the number of young people having access to higher education and consequently cap the aspirations of many working-class and lower-middle-class families. Their claim to financial savings implies that their alternative vision of vocational courses would cost little or nothing. High-quality vocational education, the best universities in the world and the maximum possible number of young people learning post-16 would not be viable under their dishonest financial support package. They also conveniently ignore the fact that credible vocational education can and should, in many circumstances, lead to higher education when young people want that, and that a significant part of achieving our 50 per cent. target for 2010 will be via vocational routes.
	It is not a question of hearts and minds versus the strength of the argument. For 18 years, the Conservative party had a unique chance to prepare our country for the challenges of the 21st century. What was its legacy? It was millions of adults lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills; 37 per cent. of 11-year-olds being unable to read or write to the required standard; and antisocial behaviour and a lack of respect permeating much of our society. Thatcher's children are also the children of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe. Blair's children will benefit from sure start, universal nursery provision, infant class sizes of fewer than 30, the primary literacy and numeracy strategy, our focus on the early years of secondary schools, our national attendance and behaviour strategy, Connexions, secondary reform, a new 14 to 19 agenda, more adults in school and lifelong learning than ever before, modern apprenticeships and education maintenance allowances, and revitalised further education and world-class higher educationnot to mention family support and financial help focused on eliminating child poverty and making work pay. That is the long-term change that we are making to the learning opportunities available to young people in our country.

Andrew Selous: I listened with interest and respect to the Minister until he went into slight ranting mode just now. Conservative Members would listen to him more closely if he were to acknowledge that under his watch not everything has been perfect: the proportion of GCSE vocational qualifications has fallen under his Government; and the proportion of people in learning and adult community enrolments has also fallen significantly. Perhaps he will come to those points shortly.

Ivan Lewis: I reject entirely the hon. Gentleman's assertions. If statistics are used out of context, they distort the argument. If it is being claimed that results for people taking GCSEs this year demonstrate that our educational reform agenda has not worked, I must point out that that takes no account of the fact that the young people taking GCSEs this year did not benefit from our literacy and numeracy strategy, our reduced infant class sizes, our early years of secondary school strategy and our 14 to 19 reforms. If we are to have an honest debate about the impact of cumulative educational reform, we must acknowledge that this Government's reforms for the long term are beginning to raise standards in our schools considerably, as is demonstrated by the improvement in literacy and numeracy at the age of 11.
	Our ambitions for vocational education will not be realised easily. We are seeking not magic wands or quick-fix solutions but a long-term cultural revolution, which will tear down the barriers between the world of education and the world of work. That will create a climbing frame of opportunities for all our young people, not a cul-de-sac or a one-way street for too many. It will ensure that lifelong learning is the powerhouse that truly extends opportunities to all, creating a nation that utilises the talents of all of our people so that we can be the best in the world.

Graham Brady: Oh dear! The Minister started so well, but it all went horribly wrong towards the end. We were on the verge of having a sensible and serious debate, and it is rather sad that he went off message.
	I am pleased to be here to open the debate for the Opposition, but I apologise for my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) who should be doing so. He could not get back to the House in time from an important engagement on similar matters in Manchester today. I know that he would wish to be here but, sadly, he cannot. However, I am grateful to have this opportunity, particularly as it could bewho knows?my last appearance at the Dispatch Box. We can only wait and see.

Kerry Pollard: Shame.

Graham Brady: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
	The Minister said that this was an important debate. It is important to employers, who need well qualified young people to come into the labour force, and to all our people, both young and old. At the beginning of his remarks, the Minister let out the guilty secret that he tried to conceal a little later. There is considerable consensus between the two sides of the House and among all parties on some of the objectives that we wish to achieve, even if we have differences of emphasis and view on how we wish to get there.
	The debate is timely in the context of the national skills strategy that the Government have published, the Tomlinson inquiry and the lively and ongoing debate on the future of higher and further education and, in particular, the funding of it, to which the Minister alluded.
	We have heard constructive contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) and the hon. Members for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) and for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who commented on the dialogue that was developing. An interesting discussion started about the balance between providing vocational options in schools and doing that on other sites in colleges, and about how we can best move forward in a way that encourages the maximum number of young people to stay in education.
	I should like the Minister to say a little more about that when he replies, particularly in the context of the flexibility pilots that have been proceeding. Those pilots are entirely welcome and have begun to show some positive outcomes. He will know, as I do, that people in the schools and colleges involved have real concerns about how the pilots can best be developed and what the appropriate funding streams will be, so that the vision of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North can be realised, with more facilities for over-14s and over-16s offered in schools. How can we enable people in schools to experience a proper mixture of vocational and academic options? I hope that the Minister will return to that point and give the House the benefit of his thoughts on the matter.
	There is a broad consensus about the nature of the problem that we face in this country with regard to skills and vocational education. The Minister went through some of the details of the background but we remain today in a relatively poor position in comparison with our main competitors in developing non-academic skills. Some 28 per cent. of British people are qualified to apprentice, skilled-craft or technician level, as against 51 per cent. of the population in France or 65 per cent. in Germany. More than 13 million people of working age lack basic qualifications. As the Minister neglected to mention in his closing remarks, 80,000 children are, according to Ofsted, currently being failed and, very largely, by our education system.

Andrew Lansley: In the context of the important debate about productivity, does my hon. Friend agree that if one compares the UK with France and Germany, the deficiency is not the proportion of students in degree-level education but the proportion who are developing intermediate skills, which are essentially skills related to national vocational qualification level 2 or 3?

Graham Brady: My hon. Friend is right, and his point is crucial to the debate about the balance between the need for higher and further education and how we should advance the cause of improving the population's skills for the benefit of the work force and employers. The Government have set an arbitrary 50 per cent. target for young people going into higher education, although during Education questions last week, I noted that the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education suggested that the figure was between 40 and 50 per cent, which sounded like backtracking or a slippage of the target.
	There is a discrepancy between the estimate of the need for graduate skills made by the Department for Education and Skills and that garnered by the Department of Trade and Industry. I received a written answer from the DFES last week stating that 65 per cent. of graduates are engaged in jobs that require a graduate qualification after three years in their careers. However, the week before that, I heard that research undertaken on behalf of the DTI through the national graduate tracking survey suggested that when graduates themselves are questioned after three years in their careers, only 48 per cent. say that they are in a graduate job. There is a real imbalance between the two Departments, so perhaps there is a lack of joined-up government. Of course, the figures go to the heart of the validity of the Government's 50 per cent. target and the question of how we should best move higher and further education forward.
	The Government's target of 50 per cent. participation in higher education is only one example of the British tendency to undervalue the vocational and practical. Similarly, we saw an increasing tendency for the fields of study in polytechnics to become more theoretical and academic. That was not only a British phenomenon. We often hear Germany's experience of vocational education held up as a beacon, but the education in German polytechnics became less technical and more theoretical and academic. That was dealt with in Germany through the creation of universities of applied science, which is an interesting model that has borne some fruitit is certainly popular with German employers.
	My hon. Friend referred to the productivity gap between this country and our competitors, which is inexorably linked to work-related skills. If we do not get our approach on such skills right, we cannot hope to reduce that gap. The UK's gross domestic product per head is below the European Union average and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. Our gap between France and Germany becomes wider if we use the measure of GDP per person hour worked, which shows that we are working harder and for longer hours to make up for difficulties faced by members of the work force who lack skills that could increase productivity.
	The picture is not all bleak, because some excellent vocational education is offered in this country. The Minister will recall his recent visit to South Trafford college in my constituency during which we saw airline cabin crew learning their trade, and students learning catering skills to a superb standardhe and I were privileged to sample their work later in our visit.
	There are, however, gaps and shortcomings in the provision of vocational education. The Minister acknowledged in a written answer on 16 September the need to do more if we are to revitalise and expand apprenticeship programmes. There are also problems with the delivery of guidance, which has been mentioned. The Connexions service is far from universal in providing the necessary guidance to young people. The problem will be compounded by the introduction of greater flexibility at key stage 4. If we are to offer a greater number of different routes to young people at the age of 14, the challenge is to get it right when we guide them through the options so that we ensure they do not take a wrong turn, which could cause difficulties for their career throughout their working lives.
	Foundation degrees must be developed with the involvement of both employers and colleges. Ministers need to be clear that the degrees are of value. They are not a shortcut to achieving the Government's target of participation in higher education or a rebranded higher national diploma.
	I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry has joined us. I am only sorry that he was not here an hour or so earlier.
	Concern is always raised when Ministers spend large sums on advertising, as they have for foundation degrees. It has not been possible to open a magazine or newspaper in the past couple of weeks without seeing glossy full-page advertisements. As they do not impart much information about foundation degrees, one is tempted to wonder whether Ministers are worried about the content of what is on offer. Conservative Members are more interested in the substance of the policy than the advertising budget.
	The Government's record on adult skills was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). It leaves something to be desired. The sinking of the flagship individual learning accounts was strangely omitted from the Minister's list of Government initiatives. That resulted in the loss of a considerable sum

Tim Boswell: 100 million.

Graham Brady: So 100 million was lost through the incompetence displayed when the policy was introduced. We were promised that the policy, central to improving adult skills and learning, would be re-introduced in short order.

Kerry Pollard: A propos the ILA, its withdrawal was the result of a fraud committed on an ever-increasing scale. It had nothing to do with the way in which it was administered by the Department for Education and Skills.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the point. Surely the problem is that Ministers should have implemented the scheme properly by providing proper safeguards against fraud. Instead, it was set up in a way that was wide open to fraud. They also ignored warnings and indications of difficulties for far too long before they acted.

Kerry Pollard: The ILA was worth 200. It would have cost much more to ensure that it was not abused. The problem was caused by Jack-the-lad coming along and abusing it.

Graham Brady: If the hon. Gentleman thinks it is so obvious that the scheme could never have worked because it was too expensive to proof it against fraud, why does he think that Ministers in his Government were incapable of seeing the blindingly obvious when they introduced the scheme?
	The Government's record on adult skills is not one of which they can be proud. Government targets push the learning and skills councils' budgets into providing for 16 to 18-year-olds and for basic skills at the expense of adult skills. That will affect the ability of colleges to meet local skill needs and demand from employers and employees for part-time courses.
	What does business need? That was summed up by the British Chambers of Commerce which said that it wants
	young people to receive education and training, not education or training.
	It backed that up with comments from 36.4 per cent. of respondents to its productivity survey earlier this year who cited the lack of available skills as a barrier to improving their business performance. The notion of education and training is at the core of our challenge in schools and colleges. Next week in Committee we will debate changes to the key stage 4 curriculum, which may bring welcome flexibility, space for training and work-related learning. However, the changes risk narrowing the curriculum, potentially restricting pupils post-14 to a choice of only one modern foreign language and only one of the humanities. It would be a tragedy if, in trying to provide greater flexibility and space in the curriculum, Ministers created a system within which our young people are offered less choice and a less broad curriculum. Ministers must persuade the House that they will not allow that to happen.
	The Engineering Employers Federation is one of many organisations to have highlighted the importance of the vocational route being given equal weighting to the academic route. The federation also voices concern about the adequacy of guidancea point touched on earlierand says that there is a need for work-based learning that
	energises and excites students and does not drain them of enthusiasm for continuing to higher levels of study.
	What would we do differently? The Minister gave a caricature of the Opposition's policies and record. We are committed to a major expansion of skills education, available to young people earlier than it is now. We will work to increase the involvement of industry in the design and outcomes of courses and qualifications. We are committed to raising the status of skills education, which can be achieved only through rigorous and relevant courses leading to high-quality qualifications. We have made clear our belief that the emphasis on increasing the numbers of people in higher educationthe 50 per cent. targetis not appropriate, as it exaggerates demand for graduate-level qualifications and diverts attention from the real skills crisis in our country. We want to widen choice and diversity in schools through our school passport and to allow more technical schools to grow. We will attach new priority to adult education, which has declined markedly in recent years, with enrolments down by more than 15 per cent. since 1996.
	We join the Government in our mutual ambition to see a renaissance in skills education in our country, but we shall constructively oppose the Government when we see them failing, or showing signs of taking the wrong turning and letting down our young people.

Kerry Pollard: I shall be extremely brief, as we have little time.
	There is a critical skills shortageespecially in the south-east; there is no doubt about thatin all sorts of professions and trades. In my area, it takes a year and half to get an appointment with a speech therapist and the therapy that many young children need. That is unacceptable. We cannot get plumbers or bricklayers, either, so we need to increase their number. That is one aspect of the problem.
	Another aspect, which no one has addressed, is prison education. If we are to reduce the prison population and stop prisoners reoffending, as about 75 per cent. do, we have to educate them and give them vocational skills. There are some excellent examples of this, and I shall cite two. One is found in Feltham young offenders institution, where the Ford Motor Company is offering apprenticeships to young guests. They are trained to maintain motor cars; the training continues after their sentence ends and they are then offered a job by the Ford Motor Company. That is an excellent scheme and we should set up more like it. The second example is that of Transco, which in two prisons in England is training gas fitters, giving people skills so that when they get out of prison, they can get a job, raise their aspirations and expectations, and perhaps not reoffend.
	I am pleased that the Select Committee on Education and Skills has at last decided to consider prison educationit is long overdue. I know that the Minister and his colleagues will welcome that work. Our Government are doing good things to tackle the skills shortage, but we need to accelerate the process.

Phil Willis: First, I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for having to leave the debate early. I have already apologised to both Front-Bench Members.
	This has been a most interesting debate, if only because of the revelation that the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and Baroness Thatcher share the same children. I find that an intriguing prospect. We now know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman got up to during the night.
	I thank the Minister for finding the time to introduce this timely debate. It gives us the opportunity to consider what stage the Government have reached with their skill strategy, where they want to go and what has been left out for the next general election. It is timely in another respect, too. I am rather sad that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) is not in his place, because the Select Committee on Education and Skills has decided to conduct a year-long inquiry into the skills strategy. We support that decision and hope that the Committee will take the Government to task on many of the things that they are doing.
	Few would deny the statistics that Members on both Front Benches have given during the debate. Indeed, those statistics have constantly been brought to the attention of the House. They show just how far behind Britain lags in its skills agenda. To be 25th in a league table of 29 industrial countries for 17-year-olds in further education or training is not something that any Member should be proud of. To be 13th out of 22 for 16-year-olds gaining the equivalent of five good GCSEs is another indictment of not only the present Government but the previous Government. Most worrying, perhaps, is that according to Chris Humphries of the national skills taskforce, by 2010 about 65 per cent. of jobs will require at least a level 3 qualification. At present, only about 38 per cent. of our workforce has that level of qualification, compared with 73 per cent. in Germany.
	I am sorry that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has disappeared, having made three speeches. I know that the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) is incredibly committed to the whole of the education and skills agenda. The idea that we need either more level 2 or level 3 skills, or more graduates, is wrong. It is fundamentally flawed. Indeed, evidence from the recent report by Professor Machin of the London School of Economics, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, shows that higher academic qualifications have robust productivity effects, at both national and regional levels. Professor Machin's interesting piece of research demonstrates that by comparison with investment at any other level, it is graduates who add to our productivity and competitiveness, and to the earnings of the nation as a whole.
	For Liberal Democratsand, to be fair, for the Governmentit is a question not of either/or, but of whether we need both approaches.

Andrew Selous: I wonder what the hon. Gentleman's response would be to the figures of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), which showed that about 48 per cent. of graduates felt that they were not in graduate-level jobs three years after starting work. Does that not suggest that quite a few graduates have taken courses that have not best equipped them for the work that they have gone into?

Phil Willis: I know that the hon. Gentleman, too, has an avid interest in educational matters, but his conclusion from the statistics to which he refers is flawed. If we are saying that the only value of having a degree and having gone to university is that of immediate employability prospects, we have missed the point.
	All the independent evidence demonstrates that a graduate education is not only about economic well-being; it is also about social well-being and healtha graduate is likely to live longer. It is sad that after three years some people feel that they are not in a job for which their degree has equipped them. One would hope that, as they progress through life, they will see the broader values of their education.
	My son graduated two years ago and is currently travelling the world. When he returns, he will probably have to start in a job where he does not have the equivalent of a graduate salary. So be it, but I hope that the whole experience will benefit him.
	I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened, because I wanted to speak briefly about Conservative policy. What saddens me most is the fact that it is populist, appears to involve no additional cost and, moreover, would seriously undermine Britain's competitiveness and the social and economic well-being of our citizens. The thrust of the policythis is surprising for the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West who, for the moment, is Front-Bench spokesmanis education for the best and skills for the rest. The Conservatives want bright middle-class children to go to academic schools and continue to take the traditional path to university.

Graham Brady: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Phil Willis: May I just finish this point, and then the hon. Gentleman can get excited?
	Bright middle-class children would go to academic schools, preferably grammar schools, and continue to take the traditional path to university. The rest would have an increasingly substandard vocational education and would become plumbers. I use the term substandard because the idea that high-quality vocational education can be offered on the cheap is nonsense. The figures that Professor Barr gave serve as an analysis of Conservative policy. He said in his report that
	good vocational training has significant costs, which these proposals totally ignore.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair to me. He and I have debated the future of secondary schools, particularly the question of selection, often enough for him to know that my passion for grammar schools derives from the fact that they offer opportunities to working-class children, who are too often deprived of such opportunities. The Minister snorts, but he had the opportunity to attend a grammar school, as did many Government Members. That opportunity is no longer available. Conservative Members want access, whether to old-fashioned grammar schools or to independent education, which in too many areas is available only to those who can afford it. It should be more openly available, regardless of people's means or income. That would help many Labour Members out of their embarrassment as well. I hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman accepts that he has done me an injustice.

Phil Willis: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if I have done so, but I do not believe that I have. It is surprising that since John Major left Parliament, not a single Conservative Memberthis will apply also, I suspect, to the new Front-Bench teamhas said openly that they want a grammar school in every town. What happened to that policy? If the hon. Gentleman believes that we should have grammar schools, he should tell the public to put their crosses against the candidates representing a party that wants to bring secondary modern schools to Britain. Nobody has ever beaten a path to my door to say that they want a secondary modern school for their children. It would be a great peril to go down that road.
	To be fair to the Conservatives, at their party conference in October they sought to put more flesh on the bones of their policies. The proposal to provide vocational education from age 13 onwards is interesting, but there would not be a single extra penny for that policy or for all the new schools, based on the model provided by the charter school movement in America, that would be required. All the money would have to be found from existing resources. If that is their policy, the Conservatives should be upfront about it. Vocational education from level 2 to postgraduate level is infinitely more expensive to provide than academic education. Funding a PhD in sociology costs about a fiftieth of funding a PhD in chemistry or engineering. We must therefore be honest about policies when we publish them.
	On current trends, 450,000 students with the equivalent of two A-levels would not have a university place under the Conservatives and would have to get vocational experience elsewhere. The cost runs into billions of pounds. It is not small beer, but a massive bill, and the Conservatives must work out how to pay it if they are to be credible.
	The biggest flaw in Conservative thinking is that removing the aspirations of working-class youngsters and the feeling that they can go to university does the whole process a disservice and puts us back to the pre-Robbins days of 1963, when only privileged youngsters from a privileged group of schools could go there. I trust that Conservative Members will rethink that policy.
	I am pleased that the Minister dealt with the 14-to-19 agenda today. We are all waiting for the outcome of the Tomlinson inquiry, but there are already worrying contradictions in what Ministers say. How can we encourage schools and colleges to co-operate on individualised vocational programmes, possibly involving employers, and end age-related testing, but hang on to central targets and league tables that use GCSEs as the main tool of institutional assessment? Those two polices are totally at odds.
	When we do not know the outcome of the Tomlinson inquiry, why are the Government going ahead with area reviews and the learning and skills proposals for a new framework of schools and colleges in the areas covered? Why take that approach before we know the thrust of a policy on the basis of which we have agreed to proceed? Why do we have a Connexions servicethis point was made earlierthat concentrates on the less able from the end of level 3, and not the gifted? We cannot have a curriculum that is open to all and offers a vocational option as well as an academic one if we simply allow schools to channel students through a particular route.
	The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who has left his place, was leader of Leeds city council when I was a head teacher in the area. He knows only too well that that is the divide that arosea divide between schools with sixth forms and the further education college sector. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) about that issue. I do not believe that offering young people quality post-16 experiences in FE colleges so that their communities see that they are getting such experiences will mean that those young people say That is not for me. The opposite is the case: we want students to stay on wherever they can, and they should have quality facilities.

Graham Brady: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but does he agree that the involvement of colleges with schools in providing some vocational education on school sites, perhaps from the age of 13 or 14, can be a very effective way of improving the vocational offer and building up a relationship between those colleges and schools?

Phil Willis: I have no problems at all with that approach. Indeed, it is Liberal Democrat policy that independent careers counselling should be provided from age 14 onwards. Such advice should be independent of the school and any other institution. Furthermore, funding should follow students from that point onwards, and that arrangement should be flexible enough to allow students to build up their prospects, including the school, FE college and workplace. That should enable us to encourage students from 14 onwards to have some aspirations and a sense progression, and to pursue mixed routes. If that all takes place on the school site, I will be delighted. Equally, I will be delighted if it occurs from 14 onwards on a college site. If students wish to pick and mixif the House will pardon the expressionI shall also be pleased.
	The Minister will be aware that we have acknowledged, as I do today, the genuine effort that he has made to come frequently to the House to tell us about how the skills programme is developing and to allow us to debate it. None the less, we have consistently signalled to him the inherent dangers of developing separate skills and academic pathways. The danger is that that will perpetuate a system that the Conservatives have now made their official policy by providing education for the best and skills for the rest.
	The Government are falling into the trap of facing two ways at once on education and skills. When I attend conferences on skills, the focus is on the White Paper, 21st Century Skills: Realising Our Potential; the inspiration is eastwards, across the channel to Germany and France; and the challenge is to increase the stock of vocational level 2 and 3 qualifications at all costs. When I attend conferences on higher education, the focus is on the White Paper, The Future of Higher Education; the inspiration is westwards, across the Atlantic to the United States; and the challenge is to increase the stock of level 4 qualifications at all costs. The problem is that there are two White Papers, not one, in circulation; and the result is confusion on the part of schools, colleges, training providers and universities. We cannot go on debating the human capital policy of this nation when the fault line between skills and higher education is so deeply obvious.
	The inconsistencies are there for us to see. Let us consider, for instance, the skills gap. The skills White Paper says that too few people have associate professional, technical and higher craft skills at level 3. Its solution is more advanced modern apprenticeships and vocational level 3 programmes. The higher education White Paper also says that we have a shortage of people with associate professional, technical and higher craft skills. It uses exactly the same language, but its solution is foundation degrees. So we have the absurd situation whereby two separate funding agencies, the Learning and Skills Council and the Higher Education Funding Council, fund two different productslevel 3 qualifications and foundation degreesand seek to solve the same problem, which in most instances will be delivered in the same further education colleges.
	I hope that the Minister will take those remarks in the spirit in which they are intended, because it is a genuine issue that needs to be grasped. It is vital that we view the skills White Paper and the higher education White Paper together. I hope that he will prepare a strategy paper that allows the House to debate how those two aspects can come together, and that the Select Committee on Education and Skills will take the same approach when it begins its inquiry in January.
	The centrepiece of the skills strategy is the skills allianceor the Soviet central committee, as it has been dubbed because of its extreme complexity. Our concerns, however, are linked not so much to the national arrangements but to the sector, local and regional arrangements. At the launch of the skills strategy, I said to the Secretary of State that it would require a PhD to fathom out the roles played in the structure by the 47 local learning and skills councils, the nine regional development agencies and the proposed network of 25 sector skills councils. There seems to be utter confusion about the arrangements, with providers, especially further education colleges, not knowing which way to turn. Given that half of all vocational qualificationssome 550,000 per yearare delivered through FE, that FE provides 200 million days of adult training to British industry every year, and that the FE colleges link up with, on average, 500 firms each, we owe the sector some clarification about the local and regional arrangements.
	It is not only the FE sector that is confused. This week, the CBI and the Engineering Employers Federation complained that bureaucracy is hampering plans to improve the skills work force. The Education and Skills Committee says that it will examine the roles of all the bodies involved in the skills alliance. I wish it luck, because there are now so many of them that it would take not this Chamber but the dome to fit them all in to discuss the issue.
	The Government seem to be riding three horses at once. One minute, they believe in a local bottom-up education and skills strategy led by local learning and skills councils. The next, they believe in a sector-driven education and skill strategy led by the new, evangelical sector skills councils. Then, they believe in a regional approach driven by the regional development agencies and regional chambers of commerce.
	The skills White Paper is fast becoming a classic Whitehall fudge. The Government must choose between local, sectoral and regional approaches to the commissioning and delivery of this strategy. The Liberal Democrats believe that the regional approach is the right one. We also believe that the Learning and Skills Council should be regionalised and merged with the RDAs, and that, when regional government comes on board, it should be subject to democratic accountability through the regional assemblies.
	We accept that the Minister has made great play of working with the business community and talking about voluntarism. He does not want any sort of statutory intervention, so far as business is concerned. However, his colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seems to have a different view, in that he talks about post-voluntarism. Will the Minister explain to us what that means? Is the Chancellor talking about incentives via tax credits, match funding, national insurance rebates or even business rate rebates, in relation to delivering skills? If so, let us engage with him on that. Or is there an agenda to examine statutory licences to practice, statutory training levels and subsidies, and a statutory right to time off for study at level 2? If that is the agenda, I think that we ought to know about it before the general election, so that it can become part and parcel of this debate.
	I applaud the Minister for coming to the House yet again to allow us to debate the skills strategy. We remain supportive of the Government's vision, and we are prepared to offer constructive support for what the Minister is trying to do, but action is needed if disillusionment is not to set in across the whole sector.

John Horam: I have never heard the Minister speak before, because I am not a regular attender of these debates, but if I may so, his speech was curiously schizophrenic. He started with some rather thoughtful remarks about vocational education, but his speech suddenly descended into a sort of rabble-rousing rant. If there had been a rabble to rouse, I could have understood that, but his tone was not entirely appropriate for the Chamber at this time, deep into a Wednesday evening when the business is relatively light and there are not many attenders, especially on the Government Benches. I felt he rather let the side down.
	Unfortunately, the Minister seemed to infect the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who went off in a rather similar vein about Conservative party policy. That was interesting, because the Liberal Democrats claim to be the most effective critics of the Government these days, yet all that they seemed to be doing on this occasion was attacking the policies adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's speech was in contrast to the magisterial approach of my hon. Friend, who made a rather modest attempt to say that he might not be on the Front Bench after the reshuffle that will presumably take place this weekend. He did not do himself justice; I am sure that he will be there for a long time to come, whether in this particular job or another one. He certainly got the better of the argument between the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Minister.
	Leaving aside that rather curious aspect of today's debate, I believe that there is a danger that we might begin to regard vocational education in the same way as we view motherhood and apple pie. We all subscribe to it in a broad, non-political and rather bland way. If I were someone who worked in that sector, I would be wary of politicians bearing gifts. My experience gives me a second sense that these things sometimes do not work out quite as well as we hope they will.
	There is a contrast between this debate and the much more heated debate that is taking place on higher education, in which we hear of Government revolts against their own policies. I am not sure which debate I would prefer to be in. Higher education is debated with great passion inside the parties and across the Chamber, whereas this subjectapart from the lapses that I have mentionedseems to attract broad consensus. There is an old Chinese curse, May you live in interesting times. I am sure that people in the higher education sector would be able to relate to that. Perhaps they would prefer to be somewhere in between the bland approach to vocational education and the rather hyper approach that we have adopted towards higher education.
	I must agree, however, with the thrust of the points made about the value and importance of vocational education, and the extent to which standards have fallen in this country over the decades. The Minister himself spoke of a time back in 1880. The old Liberal party may have had a role in those days, before successive Labour and Conservative Governments took over. It is true that current standards do not meet the aspirations and needs of the country.
	I want to say something about the Government's policy, and about the concern that it has prompted in further education colleges. More than 50 per cent. of all vocational qualificationsmore than 550,000 annuallyare awarded via colleges. Between 199798 and 200001, 2 million were awarded in that way, while 233,000 were awarded through employers. I am indebted to the Association of Colleges for those statistics.
	We all know the value of further education colleges in that context. I also welcome, with some reservations, the package the Government put together last November, a year ago. It has been widely welcomed by colleges of further education, but they are concerned about a number of matters. They feel, for instance, that many qualifications are very inflexible, as is the way in which they are funded, and that there should be a more modular approach.
	I am indebted to the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). Bury seems to have something of a hold over this subject, which is interesting. It must have an excellent college of further education. Anyway, the hon. Gentleman tabled an early-day motion, which I think I signed. It made the point rather well. It
	urges the Department for Education and Skills, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Learning and Skills Council to implement proposals in the interim skills strategy which . . . give colleges greater ability to develop bespoke
	bespoke is the crucial word
	training and flexible qualifications with simplified assessment systems so that they can equip more individual learners and employers with the skills they need in the modern economy.
	That goes to the heart of the matter. As a matter of practicality, we need more flexibility and a more bespoke approach. I hope that the Government will heed that.
	In the more sane and rational part of his speech, the Minister spoke of employers' reluctance to send people on vocational training courses. He made some sensible remarks, and I applaud the measures he said the Government were adopting to encourage employers to take the initiative. Too many employers are not sending people on such courses, often for ridiculous short-term reasons. They may feel that they will lose them to other companies, for instance.
	Friends and colleagues involved in further education often mention another factorthe excessive bureaucracy that still accompanies all these measures. I recently received a letter from a constituent who works in further education. He wrote
	We continue to experience excessive bureaucracy. The way in which we are expected to bid for additional project money and the constant auditing of how resources are spent creates . . . additional cost. There is a commitment nationally to reduce bureaucracy, but we are not yet seeing any evidence of this on the ground.
	That is the problem. Moreover, the Association of Colleges regretfully reports that only 3 per cent. of its members think that the Learning and Skills Council represents real value for money. That disturbing statistic reflects the bureaucratic approach that the LSC has somehow not yet managed to overcome.
	Let me now make a point that I have made before. I rarely speak in debates on this subject, but I have spoken before of the Government's reluctance to consider including lecturers in further education colleges in their starter homes initiative. Under that initiative, which I believe has been retitled the home buy initiative, key workers are given help with housing, but FE college lecturers have always been excluded.

Graham Brady: While my hon. Friend is on the subject of the key teacher home buy scheme, he may also wish to comment on evidence that I elicited from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the form of a written answer. I was told that the loan would be considered a taxable benefit. According to an answer from the Department for Education and Skills, it would be means-tested according to the total family income of the teacher involved.

John Horam: I am very interested in that because I am about to lead a delegation of colleges to see the Minister for Housing and Planning to discuss precisely those issuesI think that we have a date now: 4 December. I am conscious that, while a commitment in principle has been made, which I welcome, to include FE college lecturers in the scheme, the details are not yet clear. If my hon. Friend is right, that is a point that I would like to take up with the Minister on behalf of college lecturers.
	At the moment, college lecturers are clearly at a disadvantage compared with teachers. Once there was not that amount of competition between schools and FE colleges to recruit staff, but now there is severe competition. They are all scrimping from the same pool. Colleges should not be disadvantaged compared with schools. They already suffer from many disadvantages in recruitment terms, about which we should be concerned.
	I would like the Government to take on board the three issues that I have raisedbureaucracy, the attitude of employers and the need to help them to recruit properly. I hope that the Minister will respond to those points when he replies to the debate.

David Chaytor: I commend the work that has been done on the skills strategy by my hon. Friend the Minister, and particularly his commitment to bridging the vocational-academic divide. I know how strongly he feels about that. Indeed, that sentiment is reflected in his commitment to prepare the White Paper and implement its recommendations.
	I listened to the remarks of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), particularly the quotation from my early-day motion. I thank him for his support. I also listened carefully to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who said that he was offering constructive support to the Government. If I were on the front line with him and that was what he meant by constructive support, I would be a little nervous. However, he made one or two important criticisms to which should like to come back.
	The Minister and I share adjacent constituencies and we have the joint privilege of representing a local authority that has a national reputation for high educational standards, although it is my particular privilege to represent the constituency in which the major further education facilities are located. I think that I can say without fear of being challenged that Bury, North is now the further education capital of the United Kingdom. The level of investment in new facilities, the level of increase in revenue, the improvement in the quality of education and the increase in the number of staff in the further education sector in Bury, North are some of the biggest tributes to the Government's commitment to lifelong learning that one could offer.
	It is important that we are having this debate, because vocational education is a matter of enormous significance that should have a regular allocated slot in the parliamentary calendar. After all, we have an annual debate on agriculture and one on fishing, but there are far more people working in further education than in agriculture or fishing these days. It seems reasonable therefore that we should have an annual debate on vocational education and training and further education.
	Given the comparatively small number of hon. Members present, I am struck by the stark contrast between FE and vocational education and HE and academic education. The big controversy in education policy at the moment is related to HE, which has dominated our education system for half a century or more. If we were debating tuition fees, there would be more than a couple of handfuls of hon. Members in the Chamber. That is an important point to note. The Government have, rightly, done more than any Government to try to redress the balance of investment and political attention to the advantage of the further education sector, which educates the overwhelming majority of school leavers. That means a necessary shift in the balance away from the university sector. What we are discussing today, however, is linked to the question of financing universities, tuition fees and top-up fees. It is particularly striking that the per capita investment in each FE student is some 20 per cent. less than in each HE student. That really makes the point for the Government's policy on tuition fees.

John Pugh: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the distinction between higher or academic education and vocational education is somewhat spurious, given that some of the most oversubscribed courses in HEthose in medicine and laware essentially vocational?

David Chaytor: I agree completelyindeed, I have made the same point on many occasions. I come back to my starting point: this Government have done more than any other to try to bring together the academic and the vocational into a seamless range of provision. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to stress the vocational nature of some very prestigious university courses. We must get away from a concept that has divided our education service and our society; indeed, the Conservatives' policy on HE finance draws that point to our attention more than ever before. In arguing that we cannot have so many people in universities, and that we should abandon the 50 per cent. target, they are really trying to turn the clock back and to build a divide, at a very early stage, between the sheep and the goats. At the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, this country does not have the luxury of dividing people into sheep and goats at birth, or at the age of five, 11, 16 or 18. That is why a coherent and integrated post-16preferably, post-14policy is needed.
	I want to draw attention to the enormous step forward that the White Paper has taken in the financing of vocational education. There is the introduction of education maintenance allowances, which will go nationwide; the introduction of the education grant for adults post-19, which is being piloted; the development of employer training pilot schemes, which, as I understand it, are being carefully evaluated with a view to going nationwide; and the introduction of a commitment to free tuition for level 2 courses. All are important developments that represent a significant shift in educational opportunity for people who, historically, have been denied such opportunity. The Government are making the central point that, if we want a nation that can compete effectively in the modern world, and in which every individual has the opportunity to develop their full potential, we must invest equally in all individuals, rather than making arbitrary distinctions between those who will receive an academic education with a higher per capita investment, and those who will be sidelined into vocational training.
	I know that time is short, but I want now to offer some constructive support for, and criticism of, the White Paper. I want to pick up on the comments of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, and to discuss the organisational structures that we have inherited and are trying to shape into the delivery mechanism for the White Paper's policies. The combination of the sector skills councils, the 47 learning and skills councils and the increasing involvement of the regional development agencies presents a confusing picture. I have made that point to the Minister privately, so I know that he is aware of it, but I want publicly to reiterate the overriding importancethis is also the view of a growing number of peopleof streamlining our bureaucracy for the delivery of vocational education, and of bringing together previously separate bureaucracies, organisations, quangos and agencies. If this policy, in which we have invested a huge amount of political and financial commitment, is going to succeed, we cannot afford to see it hit the rocks because of bureaucratic obstruction.
	In my many years of experience in vocational education and training, one difficulty has been that the debate has focused on the delivery mechanism. What has been left out in that is the concept of the curriculum. Whether we have good access to high-level skills, whether we have motivated young people and adults, and whether we develop a lifelong learning culture all greatly depend on what people are learning.
	I conclude by returning to the early-day motionI must confess that I had forgotten about it, but it was obviously a good one and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Orpington for reminding me of itand focusing on the curriculum. The White Paper says that we need an adult curriculum in bite-size chunks, and we are now starting to talk about a modular curriculum.
	I know that the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Ken Boston, feels passionately about that issue and I would urge the Minister to read his article published in The Daily Telegraph on 8 October. I realise that that newspaper is not often in the vanguard of progressive educational thinking, but on this occasion it provided Mr. Boston with a platform to make a telling point. In the article, he said that, in Australiawhere he comes from
	the schools most successful in attracting students into vocational education are those that shape their curriculum, according to the age of the students, on the basis of the national training packages. These are unitised, credit-based, industry-derived training programmes that specify knowledge, skill and competencies at successive levels of qualification within each vocation.
	He went on to say:
	My experience has been that the presence of teachers with similar inspirational qualities is critical to the attraction and retention of young people to vocational education in schools.
	It is a matter of curriculum, of quality teachers and inspirational teaching. The real point is that we cannot afford to leave that to the post-19 phase. That is why I am excited by the proposals for 14 to 19-year-olds in the work of Tomlinson and others. If we are going to bridge the academic-vocational divide, we have to get a unitised, credit-based curriculum in our schools.
	It is an enormous irony of our education system that the elite and those who find it easiest to learnundergraduates and, increasingly, postgraduates in universitiesare completely used to a unitised, credit-based system. It is accepted as an effective form of motivation. Yet those who are less well motivated and find it more difficult to learn are expectedand have always been expectedto follow courses that continue for one or two full years. It is hard for certain young people and adults to maintain a strong level of commitment over that period of time.
	I conclude with a plea to the Minister. Yes, we have to get the bureaucracy right and streamline the organisation, but let us not be obsessed by organisational matters. Let us focus on the quality of teaching and on the curriculum. Let us ensure that we have a seamless policy, starting at 14, with a unitised, credit-based curriculum. I believe that that is the single most important factor that will encourage more of our young people to continue their education and training beyond the age of 16, beyond 19 and throughout their lives.

Andrew Lansley: I shall endeavour to be brief, although perhaps I shall not be able to match the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard).
	The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) suggested that his constituency was the further education capital of the United Kingdom without contradiction, but I am sure that South Cambridgeshire can compete, not least with the presence of Hills Road sixth-form college, which has the highest academic standards of any FE college in the country, and Long Road sixth-form college. Homerton college also makes an important contribution to teacher education, so South Cambridgeshire is certainly up there and bidding against the claims of Bury, North.
	I do not want to dwell on higher education, not because I do not have anything to say on the subject, but because I suspect that there will be other and better opportunities to discuss it at greater length. There is a risk of losing sight of some of the particular issues that could usefully be discussed this evening. I shall touch on a few.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) mentioned the important issue of productivity, and the Trade and Industry Committee has considered with great care how productivity can be stimulated. It is not enough to say simply that the composition of skills between this country and others differs, and that that explains the productivity gap. That is part of the explanation, but the differences between this and other countries are complex. Nor is it true to say that if we spend more money on education, we will automatically see an improvement in productivity. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) misrepresented the Conservative party's approach, as the key point is not simply that we have too few people with intermediate skillswith the implication that we have too many people with degrees. The point is that we have far too many people with a lower level of skills.
	The Minister said, rightly, that we should consider whether qualifications are fit for purpose, but quality educationvocational or academicis all about fitness for purpose. It is about ensuring that students, of whatever age, pursue courses and qualifications that are fit for their purposes. The Minister reminded usas if we had forgotten, and I do not think we hadthat people can progress to degree level by a vocational route. That is true and, therefore, it ill becomes the Government to set an arbitrary 50 per cent. target for participation in higher education, when people reach different levels of education through various mechanisms. In many instances, they take a more vocational route that is based substantially in further education or work in the early days. It is the nature of the Government's problem that they have directed people into university courses, when the further education route might have been better for them.
	Modern apprenticeships are at the heart of the vocational route. As the Minister suggested, I shall look at the entry to employment scheme and how well it bridges the gap that otherwise might force people into foundation modern apprenticeships. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough mentioned the external assessment of key skills and the desirability of the incorporation of that into the NVQ structure. Many employers certainly find that the bureaucracy and the time lost from work when those on modern apprenticeships go off for external assessment is a deterrent.
	However, at the same time, we should compare our system with the German apprenticeship systemas the Engineering Employers Federation did in its helpful document, Bridging the Continental Divide. In Germany, the general and technical competencies are the subject of external testing and examination. That is important, because we need to make a distinction between those occupational aspects that are practical and can be examined and assessed as people do their work in their workplace, and technical competencies that should be assessed independently to boost the value of the qualification if the young person moves to other employers. Not all examination and assessment should be brought into the workplace.
	The EEF document also referred to research produced for the National Institute Economic Review in 2001 by H. Steedman, which shows that the comparison between Germany and this country is still a testing one. It states that
	overall, a young person who completes an apprenticeship in the German system would be able to meet the standard for a British NVQ3 in the same occupation. However, a young person with a British apprenticeship and NVQ3 would not be able to reach the standard required for the German system's general and technical education requirements.
	We must bear that in mind when we talk about NVQ3, because we tend to believe that it is of a comparable standard to apprenticeships in other countries. If it is not comparable, we have to make sure that it becomes so, as that is what employers are looking for.
	I listened with interest to Irena Grugulis of Bradford university on a radio programme the other night. I confess that I had seen no reference to her report previously, although I understand that it was published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations in September. It deals with the contribution of NVQs to the growth of skills in the UK. Her analysis suggests that NVQs do not attract the support from employers that they should. I do not know whether that is true, but I subscribe heartily to her prescription that there should be a much stronger industry and employer-led element in the structure of NVQs.
	I end with a final, short point. I mentioned the structure of the relationship between LSCs and RDAs, but the matter goes much wider. There is a vast range of business support structures in the skills and training arena. The skills strategy has tried to resolve the question of how businesses relate to all the many organisations and opportunities by saying that the principle should be that there are no wrong doors. The implication is that skills and training are located in a world of virtual reality, where every door opens out on the right location.
	However, I do not think that the real world works like that. If there are too many doors, brands, initiatives and structures, employers will simply walk away. We must ensure that the path is clearer and better organised, so that businesses can have confidence in the structures and the qualifications that are provided. Matters must also be kept simple, so that businesses can know how to proceed. For example, they must know that Business Link will get them to the training opportunities that they need for people entering employment through apprenticeships and the like. That is also important for raising the skills level in employment in places such as South Cambridgeshire, where there are relatively few people without jobs who want, and are able, to enter employment.
	Raising the overall level of skills, principally among people who are in employment, is critical to our long-term economic performance. To make that happen, we must work primarily through the business community.

Andrew Selous: I want to start by referring to a document published by the EU social fund, which I came across in my work as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. It assesses the labour market skills of the different countries in the UK, as they affect economic performance.
	Two comments stick out. According to the report, the UK has
	Poor basic skills amongst a significant proportion of the workforce
	and
	Low educational attainment levels and participation rates in lifelong learning.
	Just about every speaker in the debate has acknowledged that that is the position of the UK in relation to our European counterparts. There is no doubt that the solution to those problems lies in our schools first of all, where a proper basic level of education must be provided. The next step is to ensure that there is effective and relevant vocational and technical training.
	I want to pay tribute to the excellent Dunstable college in my constituency, and especially to its new director, Chris Vesey, who recently took over. That FE college runs highly innovative courses at a number of sites around my constituency, and it works extremely well with schools and the nearby Luton university. It has also been instrumental in helping to establish the new learning warehouse that is to open in Leighton Buzzard. That innovative and exciting venture will enable people in full-time work to access vocational training in the evenings or at weekends.
	I also pay tribute to my local university, which is pioneering vocational higher education in a number of fields, with a large number of students coming into it much later in life. It is definitely aiding the economic development of my area.
	Over the past few years, in certain respects we have gone slightly backwards in relation to vocational education. There have been 190,000 fewer enrolments in adult and community learning courses since 1996, and the vocational proportion of GCSE-equivalent courses has fallen since 1997worrying factors about which the Government should not be complacent.
	It seems to me that the challenge is to try to maintain the enthusiasm that children have when they start school, and to try to keep that throughout their education. It often starts to tail off at around the age of 13, when a large number of children perhaps find that the curriculum is not meeting their interests and aspirations, which is why my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) is going in the right direction with his proposals to make technical and vocational education open to people from the age of 13 and to set up new types of schools that focus on those areas. I also hope that those schools and colleges will look at what are often called the soft skills, which are important in terms of getting people into work. When the Select Committee has looked at employment matters, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), who also serves on the Committee, seems to agree, we have found that those skills are particularly important in terms of getting people into work. People's ability to go through their daily routine and to get on with others is often critical to moving them nearer to the labour force, getting them into work and helping them to stay there.
	If we are to help people later in life and to help people to work to a later stage in their lives than many people who retire in their late fifties and early sixties, vocational education has a great role to play, particularly for people who have been in stressful manual occupations. A great role exists for FE and vocational training to help those who want to continue working and supplement their retirement income to move into less stressful work, rather than continue in work that they find physically demanding and extremely draining.
	I know from meeting my local FE providers that the different funding streams are a great source of concern, and I know about the difficulties between the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Learning and Skills Council and the skills alliance. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) summed up the problem well when he said that there is a difference of approach, whether it is a local, sectoral or regional one. We must sort out which one we use. My preference would not be the regional route, because time and again I have seen that areas such as mine, which do not have major towns, lose out. I would like the local and sectoral route to be used.
	It is worrying too that so many FE colleges do not feel that the LSC offers them good value for money. As we heard earlier in the debate, if only 3 per cent. of colleges believe that they are receiving good value for money, that is indeed a problem. A quote comes to mind that I heard yesterday from Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General, in respect of the Government's approach to the private finance initiative and the complexity of vocational funding in this country:
	Out of complexity comes confusion and out of confusion comes chaos.
	Sadly, that refrain applies to a number of the Government's different programmes.
	Finally, I want to mention the question of foreign languages, about which I am concerned. Recent Government announcements will reduce the amount and extent of foreign language training. Before I became a Member of the House, I worked for a company that had its headquarters in Germany, and it was noticeable that almost everyone whom I dealt with in the German headquarters spoke fluent English. In a world in which we need to trade abroad to survive, we neglect foreign language skills at our peril. I urge the Government to consider the consequences of that for Britain as a trading nation.

Ivan Lewis: With the leave of the House, may I first say gently to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) that people are sensitive to the use of the term schizophrenic? I understand that he has been a Labour Member of Parliament, a Social Democrat MP and now a Conservative MP. I am not sure that he should label me in that way in that context.
	I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) that Bury college of further education is a centre of excellence. It may be in Bury, North, but many of the students and staff live in Bury, South. I urge Mike Tomlinson to take seriously my hon. Friend's points about curriculum and qualifications when he considers the future of 14 to 19 education.
	On a personal note, I hope that the hon. Members for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) and for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) are still in their posts next week. I genuinely mean that. I hope that they will still be able to participate in these debates. There is much consensus on vocational education, but the sheep and goats model emanating from the Conservatives is clear. It is clearer than ever before that their higher education policy is driven by political opportunism and not the needs of the country or the needs of young people.

Graham Brady: rose

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with the comments. of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) about productivity. Yes, we need skills, but innovation, capital investment and leadership are among several other factors. Although it is right for us to create as simple a system as possible for employers to access, the idea that they would go through one door is simply not true. That is why we must ensure that, whichever door employers choose to walk through, they receive the same advice and information and get the training when they need it.
	The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) raised a number of important issues. He expressed concerns about the relationship between regional and national, but he obviously has not heard what we have said about the regional skills alliance. He seemed to dismiss the importance of the national delivery partners coming together, which is important. We must remember that employers choose to network in very different ways. Some identify with their region, sub-region and local high street and some clearly identify with the sector of which they are members. When influencing demand, we have to have an approach that is sensible nationally and that takes account of regional and sub-regional issues.
	I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) mentioned the importance of prison education. He will be glad to know that, over the next three years, we will make a record level of both revenue and capital investment. We are going through a new contracting process to ensure quality provision in prison education and we are creating new positions of heads of learning and skills councils in every institution. We are also bringing together vocational training and education in prisons.
	The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) paid tribute to his local colleges and talked about modern foreign languages. Forcing young people who do not want to do modern foreign languages to study them is not the answer to the problem of our country genuinely needing people with those skills for our economy and place in the world. That is why we are determined to drive the teaching of modern foreign languages down to primary level so that children enjoy learning them. That will become a natural part of their early-years development and they will be positively keen and enthusiastic to develop those language skills as they get older.
	The Tories are fond of citing figures for adult and community learning. Let us be clear that there has been a reduction in enrolment in adult and community education, but the greatest single reduction was between 1996 and 1997 when 170,000 fewer people enrolled in adult education colleges. [Interruption.] Some 170,000 fewer people enrolled in adult education courses under the Tories. Although there has not been an improvement in the position, the number has stabilised in recent years. The Tories should not quote distorted and disingenuous facts if they want us to believe that they are somehow a changed political party.
	I believe that vocational education is central to the future of our economy and our society. If we want a socially just and economically successful society that competes internationally
	It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Speaker: We now come to motions Nos. 5 to 7. If it is convenient to the House, I shall take them together.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Northern Ireland

That the draft Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.
	That the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Act 2003 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 2696), dated 21st October 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.
	That the Northern Ireland (Date of Next Assembly Poll) Order 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 2697), dated 21st October 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.[Ms Bridget Prentice.]
	Question agreed to.

PETITION
	  
	Restricted Growth

Patsy Calton: May I present a petition signed by 6,776 people and collected by members of the Restricted Growth Association?
	The petition states:
	To the House of Commons
	The Petition of the Restricted Growth Association
	Declares that there is stereotyping of and discrimination towards people of Restricted Growth.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons support members of the Restricted Growth Association in their efforts to end the general stereotyping and discrimination directed towards them.
	And the Petitioners remain etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

POST OFFICE NETWORK (ISLE OF WIGHT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Ms Bridget Prentice.]

Andrew Turner: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the chance to speak about the post office network on the Isle of Wight. I am glad that the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services is in the Chamber. I was pleased to welcome him to my constituency last Friday and I am sure that he saw a little of it, although it was not at its best, given the weather. I assure him that it hardly ever rains on the Isle of Wighthe picked the one out of 365 days when it does.
	I want to cover three issues and make one suggestion. First, I do not believe that the Post Office has clear criteria for distinguishing between urban and rural post offices, and neither has it clear criteria for closing post offices under the urban network reinvention scheme. It merely seems to ask, Who wants the money, and puts forward a post office for closure. I shall illustrate that by reference to Gurnard post office.
	Secondly, there has been a continual diversion of business from sub-post offices, which is shown by the difficulty that people have obtaining Post Office card accounts. I shall illustrate that by reference to Wroxall post office. Thirdly, there is no clear joined-up thinking among different Department of Trade and Industry sponsored businesses, which I shall illustrate with reference to Pan post office. My suggestion, in case I do not have time to come back to it, is that the Minister should implement recommendation 18 of the document Counter Revolution as quickly as possible to make post offices governmentand perhaps even local governmentgeneral practitioners.
	Recently, Parkhurst, Haylands and Tennyson road, Cowes, post offices have been closed. A second round of consultation has begun on the closure of Gurnard, Oakfield, Avenue road, Sandown, and Pan post offices. The clerk to Gurnard parish council, Mr. Rusty Adams, wrote to me saying:
	Gurnard has been lumped together by the Government's Countryside Agency into what is known as the Cowes Sprawl and so the Post Office has been classified as Urban, when it is quite obviously in a Rural area. This is totally unacceptable and a nonsense to anyone who knows the Isle of Wight, as Gurnard is the Government's ideal example of a close-knit Community in its own right and happens to be geographically totally separated from Cowes.
	Gurnard has a population of 3,500 and its nearest available alternative post office is 1.2 miles away along hilly terrain. I contacted the local rural community council, which told me:
	By no means is Gurnard an urban area. It is most definitely rural.
	It said that a rural community is defined as one with a population fewer than 3,000. The clerk to the parish council tells me that Gurnard's population is about 3,500. According to the 2001 census, however, the population is 1,696. It depends on what boundaries of the village are adopted, whether it is an enumeration district or the whole parish.
	The South East England Development Agency tells me that it recognises communities of 10,000 and under as rural. The Government's rural White Paper gives the figure of 20,000. The Minister advised me, I think in a parliamentary answer, that the appropriate figure was 10,000. Why is Gurnard being considered for closure, especially when the nearest alternative is 1.2 miles away? Why is Oakfield being considered when the nearest alternatives are half a mile away and 0.7 miles away, again along hilly terrain? Both post offices that are proposed for closure have parking facilities. Those that are to remain open as an alternative to Oakfield, which are only about 300 yd apart in Ryde, have no adjoining parking facilities. Can we have clarity of criteria?
	I am also concerned about the diversion of business. Customers and post office employees are confused about the introduction of Post Office accounts and the payment of pensions and benefits into building societies. The chairman of the Isle of Wight County Federation of Women's Institutes, Joan Finch, told the Isle of Wight County Press that she feared the flow of business to the post office had been reduced due to people getting their pensions paid into their bank accounts or building societies.
	If it were as easy as Ministers appear to think it is to open a Post Office card account, there would be no problem, but the Wroxall post office has given me no fewer than 10 examples of people who have encountered difficulties. It tells me that they are a mere snapshot so there could be many more. I will not read them all out. A lady with a daughter who has learning difficulties contacted the freephone hotline two months ago to find out about the Post Office account and to explain her daughter's difficulties, but she still has not received a reply. A lady in receipt of one benefit was sent a letter by the Department for Work and Pensions saying she was entitled to another benefit. When she phoned to tell it there was an error, the DWP said that there was not. Later, having given her the second benefit, it told her she was not eligible for the benefit and was in arrears with the DWP.
	An 84-year-old woman who applied for a Post Office account was sent a letter from Jobcentre Plus about changing to direct payment. One person was told she could not be an agent for both her husband, who is a pensioner, and a parent, because no one could be of pensionable age and still have a living parent. Someone else who used all three of her Christian names was told that she could have only one name on the card. When she rang the helpline and said that she could have as many names as she wanted at a bank, she was told that she should go to a bank.
	I do not expect the Minister to respond to those examples specifically, but they illustrate repeated complaints that I get from sub-postmasters about the difficulties they encounter in helping people to open Post Office card accounts. Someone told me that one post office has lost 230 transactions a week as a result of people not claiming their pension or child allowance and 200 transactions a week because of the loss of the key meter service. For a different post office, that amounts to a gross loss of 700 a week.
	One problem is that child benefit appears quietly to have been removed from the Post Office. People are getting letters that tell them in small print in the third paragraph to
	give us the details of the account you'd like your
	child benefit to be paid into. It goes on:
	You can use an existing account at a bank or building society if you have one, or if you are claiming tax credits and have already chosen an account for that, you may wish to use the same account. If you don't have an account, or want to keep your Child Benefit separate, the leaflet sent with this letter gives you details of the accounts you could openincluding new types of accounts at a bank, building society or at the Post Office.
	It does not say that one can open a Post Office account even if one has a bank or building society account. I think that that letter is misleading. For the Minister's information, it is from Jim Harra, the director of the Child Benefit Office, is dated 28 October last year, and was sent to a lady in another constituency.
	I raised with the Minister's predecessor, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), the removal of key meter accounts from post offices, which is a means, albeit unintentional, of diverting business from post offices. I did so after visiting Chale Green post office. The hon. Gentleman responded:
	It appears in this case that Scottish and Southern Energy believes it can cut costs by choosing Paypoint, which competes with the Post Office in providing services such as bill payment. As Mr. Turner
	he means Mr. Whitney, who is the postmaster
	says, it appears that the Post Office will not allow Paypoint to site equipment in its outlets. In these circumstances, the charging facilities will have to be sited elsewhere.
	Other than the post office, there is no shop in Chale Green. The nearest commercial outlet is Chale filling station, about a mile away. The White Mouse is a wonderful pub, but it does not have a post office in it and is not used to having a key meter site.
	Last year, when I was undertaking my mobile summer surgery, I drew up outside Pan post office on a Tuesday morning and was amazed to find 40 or so local people, led by David Boulton and his daughter Trudy Boulton, who are users of Pan post office and were concerned that the key meter was being withdrawn from it. According to the ACORNa classification of residential neighbourhoodssystem, Pan's residents are
	Type 45 . . . Likely characteristics . . . low income council neighbourhoods . . . concentrated mainly in Merseyside. 34% of the population of Liverpool is in this ACORN Type.
	Well, quite a lot of the population of Pan is, too. The description continues:
	They are also found to a lesser extent in the major conurbations, central Scotland and parts of Wales.
	For some reason, the classification does not add, and in Pan, but there we are. Tony Cockburn, one of only three Labour councillors in my constituency, represents Pan; he is an excellent local councillor. The census figures show that 40 per cent. of Pan's population have health that is only fairly good or not good; 26 per cent. suffer limiting long-term illnesses; 47 per cent. are economically inactive, of which 9 per cent. are permanently sick or disabled and 9 per cent. look after a home or family; 44 per cent. of the population have no qualifications; 9 per cent. of households are headed by a lone parent with children; and 35 per cent. do not have access to a car.
	An elderly couple on the estateMr. and Mrs. Crutcher of 114 Furrlongswrite:
	Regarding the proposal to close PAN ESTATE POST OFFICE, are you and the powers that be fully aware of what this will mean to partly handicapped 85-year-old people who rely on the P.O. for pensions and paying Council Tax, Rent, Water Rates. Many people like my husband and I have not got a Bank account so we rely on the P.O. I have lived on the estate for 40 years, without these problems.
	The Council are talking of building more houses in this area; without a P.O. young and old are going to realise a P.O. is essential. Each time we get the Bus to Newport, it costs 80p return each. I cannot go to the Newport G.P.O. as I can only walk a few steps on crutches. My husband is unable to drive owing to a heart problem.
	That letter illustrates the concern on the Pan estate about the closure of the post office, which is run very effectively by Jean Sampson. We believe that the closure has been advanced by the withdrawal of the key meter scheme. Pan post office is located within the Costcutter store on Royal Exchangethe name of a street in Pan. The store is run by Mr. Paul Brett, who has done all in his power to keep the post office open.
	Following the reply that I received from the hon. Gentleman, I received letters from Dave Barnes of Ofgem, from the Post Office and from Energywatch, about the withdrawal of the key meter scheme. Ofgem wrote:
	The decision on which payment outlets are used is a commercial one for companies. Outlets are operated through post offices, newsagents, convenience stores and garages. Many of these local outlets operate as agents for PayPoint or Pay Zone, which compete with post offices for this business. However, some existing agents could not or did not want to provide the PayPoint service, among these being the post office at Chayle Green, Isle of Wight.
	It was not that they did not want to; it was that they were not allowed to do so.
	Mr. Jim Green, the head of Consignia Utilities Markets, told me that
	Being aware of the arguments behind our current policy you will understand that we have to consider the viability of the network as a whole, so that occasionally difficult decisions have to be made in relation to a single Post Office branch in order that Post Office Ltd. may continue to offer integrity of service across all our branches nationwide. I am therefore afraid that we have no room for manoeuvre in this case.
	that is, to allow the post office to run PayPoint instead of key meter. Mr. Stephen Reid, chief executive of Energywatch, tells me that Scottish and Southern Energy
	advise us that it has already withdrawn the above services having tried to get the PowerPoint facility into the exact same premisesat Costcutterwhich houses the post office . . . However, we have noted that Consignia Royal Mail, which is in direct competition with PowerPoint, has objected to this facility and thus 'blocked' this initiative.
	Those are two businesses sponsored by the Minister's Department with a panoply of regulatory and watchdog organisations, such as Ofgem, Postwatch and Energywatch, which seem incapable of realising the damage that they are doing to the Post Office network.
	I will not go on at great further length, but I thank the Minister for writing to me on 24 March as follows:
	Post Office Limited agents can install unbranded PayPoint terminal in their private businesses but cannot use these for products or services that compete with those offered by Post Office Ltd. Electricity Key recharging falls into this category. This restriction is an essential element in protecting the viability of the Post Office branch network as a whole.
	That does not wash with residents on the Pan estate. Mr. Alan Young, director of corporate communications of Scottish and Southern Energy, writes that SSE discussed providing an unbranded service at Pan post office with Post Office Counters Ltd. to try to take this forward
	but regrettably they declined to co-operate with this option.
	As late as 5 June, April Groombridge of the network development, a department of PayPoint, offered a PayPoint terminal to Paul Brett at Pan's Costcutter store, but as far as he knows he is still not able to have one. He says:
	The post office at Pan is profitable at the present time because my wife and I have always kept the office's costs very low (never increasing them), never taking on anything that would be to the financial detriment of the Post Office (refusing Pay Point, cash machines, etc, advertising and promoting the Office every three weeks for the last three years and investing heavily in our business.
	He feels let down. He writes:
	The Post Office and Labour Government should realise that of any Office in the Newport area, including the General Post Office, Pan Sub-office has the potential to remain profitable, in what we know are difficult times for the Post Office.
	My concern is that the post office network is not being properly exploited. It would benefit from the Government's general practitioner scheme. It would certainly benefit if local government used it more, as it would benefit if utilities used the network more. The utilities went to PayPoint from key meter because the promoters of PayPoint were able to invest in the replacement of electricity meters in people's homes, and the Post Office did not have the capital available to do so. That has led to the danger faced by Pan post office and a number of the rural post offices on the island that are not covered by the urban network reinvention scheme.
	I am concerned that the Post Office is promoting the closure of post offices at random in urban areas depending not on need and not on geography but on the willingness of the sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress concerned to retire. That is a wholly arbitrary and unreasonable basis on which to hand out Government money taxpayers' money, money from the peoplein the very communities that are being affected by these closures.

Stephen Timms: I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on securing this debate. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to his constituency last Friday, the weather notwithstandingit was sunny for a fair part of the day, but wet for the rest. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the issues that he has raised this evening. I fear that I may not be able to cover all of them, but if I cannot respond fully now, I shall write to him.
	I can give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that we are firmly committed to maintaining a viable nationwide network of post offices, which are an extremely important focal point for the local community, particularly for people who do not find it easy to get around. I can also give him an assurance that everybody who wishes to continue to receive their benefits in cash from their local post office can do so. That has been a given in the introduction of direct payment, which is currently under way.
	Recommendations in the widely welcomed report of the performance and innovation unit in 2000 formed the basis of our policy on the post office network. The Government accepted all the PIU recommendations, including the recommendation that, should the Post Office decide that fewer post offices were needed in some areas, the Government should consider providing funding to ensure that the sub-postmasters affected could be compensated adequately for the loss of their business. I think that that is fair. The hon. Gentleman suggested that it was a misuse of public funding, but I do not think that it is. The value of post office businesses has declined in recent years for a variety of reasons that I shall come on to. Many people who have run those businesses have worked hard for a long time, and we took the view that it was appropriate for them to be compensated fairly if their business closed under the programme. Last November, following parliamentary approval for the funding, Post Office Ltd. initiated its programme for urban post offices.
	There are nearly 17,000 post offices around the UKmore than all the banks and building societies in the country put together. Tellingly, there are more than 1,000 urban sub-post offices with at least 10 other post offices within a mile. There is simply not the business to sustain so dense an urban network, and sub-postmasters have been finding it increasingly difficult to earn a reasonable income from their business. The great danger facing the Isle of Wight and elsewhere if nothing had been done was an unmanaged decline in the network, with urban post offices closing haphazardly and serious gaps in the service opening up. However, there is a properly managed process for the Post Office to configure its network to meet the needs of the communities that it serves and fit the level of business going through the network. Two thirds of the urban population live within half a mile of two or more post offices, many of which are struggling. The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has supported the process because everyone accepts that we need a properly managed reduction in the number of urban post offices so that the network can have the viable and successful future that we all want.
	There are many reasons for the decline in post office business, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the trends that have led to those problems are long-standing in nature. For example, more than 43 per cent. of benefit recipients already choose to access their benefit payments via bank accounts, compared with 26 per cent. in 1996. The traditional business on which post offices have depended in the past has been declining. That is why it is so important that we have been able to invest an enormous amount500 millionto equip every single post office in the country, including all those on the Isle of Wight, with technology to support banking services. That opens up a new market for post offices that can give them the prospect of a successful future. I am very encouraged by some of the changes that we have seen as a result of that investment, and I think that they augur well for the future.
	The hon. Gentleman was especially concerned about the criteria for including particular offices in the urban reinvention programme, as opposed to rural post offices, which are outside it. Post Office Ltd. analyses an area as either urban or rural on the basis of whether the branch in question is located in a community of more or fewer than 10,000 inhabitantsthe figure that he correctly quoted from my letter to him. The Post Office adopted that broad definition in autumn 2000, when the Government placed on it a formal requirement to maintain services and prevent avoidable closures in the rural network. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of closures in the rural network as a result.
	The Post Office has carried out detailed planning to establish which branches are classified as rural and which are classified as urban. It has developed a sophisticated geographical mapping computer model that measures population in terms of contiguous or very close agglomeration. Where a number of villages or small communities adjoin one another or a larger town and the aggregate population exceeds 10,000, the model reflects that fact and classifies the area as urban. I can well understand that customers using the Gurnard branch think of themselves as a distinct and separate community, but given the concerns expressed about that branch, the Post Office has rechecked its analysis and confirmed its classification of the office as urban on the ground that it is located within the contiguous population area of Cowes. That is consistent with the approach adopted nationally to classify the entire network. In arguing against at least some aspects of the proposals that have been made for urban offices on the Isle of Wight, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is on strong ground on that particular point. However, he was on stronger ground in making another point, which he may want to take further. I shall return to that point in a moment.
	Initially, closure proposals under the Post Office Ltd. programme were focused on single offices known to be most at risk of closure because of poor viability, in order to minimise the possibility of unplanned and unmanaged closures occurring and gaps opening up. However, the company accepted that there was a lot of uncertainty about the future shape of the network and it has now undertaken to produce its proposals on an area-by-area basis using parliamentary constituencies or groupings of constituencies. Postcomm has commended Post Office Ltd. for that response, as has the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. Producing proposals on an area-by-area basis, as has now been done for the Isle of Wight, means that everyone can see what the end point will be and gives a clear view of the level and location of service provision at the end of the programme. I understand that, in order further to minimise uncertainty, Post Office Ltd. will bring the whole programme forward by a year, so it will all be over by December 2004.
	Every proposal is subject to public consultation, and the consumer watchdog Postwatch has a very important role. The hon. Gentleman did not mention Postwatch, but it is consulted on every proposal and is monitoring the programme as a whole. I met Postwatch representatives recently to discuss how that is going, and it is working diligently on the matter. Given the new area basis to which I have referred, Post Office Ltd. has agreed with Postwatch to extend the period of public consultation, which was formerly a month for each closure, to six weeks for the area as a whole. It is important that those who are concerned about certain elements of the proposals for the hon. Gentleman's constituency should take them up with Postwatch, which will want to satisfy itself about them. As he knows, the closing date for representations is 2 December, so there is still time to do so.
	The hon. Gentleman may have an alternative proposalperhaps that one of the offices should be retained, while another that is not in the frame for closure should be closed instead. If so, I encourage him to draw it to the attention of Postwatch.
	My time is rapidly running out, but I want to make one last point. The hon. Gentleman said that one of the offices proposed for closure is 1.2 miles from the nearest post office. The objective of the programme is to ensure that at least 95 per cent. of the urban population will be within a mile of their nearest post office.
	The motion having been made after Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes to Eight o'clock.